


couldn't hide from the thunder in a sky full of song

by maximoffs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, M/M, Reincarnation, and then they very much are again, angst pining feelings all that good stuff included, memory loss through reincarnation, they are technically not brothers until the second half of this, very minor steve/bucky in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximoffs/pseuds/maximoffs
Summary: the norns have had enough of thor and loki's absolute nonsense, so they decide to give them mortal lives where they don't know one another. they live in peace for about 30 years.then they meet.then they fall.then the norns notice them again.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 80
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt courtesy of the [worst person and enabler i know](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries)!!!!!!!!
> 
> this was supposed to be a fairly short, single-chapter type deal, but it got away from me. fair warning that there is a significant shift in tone and atmosphere halfway through the story, because things change very abruptly for these two. also fair warning that while this is canon divergent, and that the first half is a full-on au, there are (brief) mentions of things that have happened across the marvel cinematic universe, from thor 1 up until the last one that came out* beginning in part 2. the details of those things aren't particularly important, but they eventually inform the characters' relationship to one another. you know that. you know who thor and loki are.
> 
> i'll be updating this ideally once a week! 
> 
> * FUCK end g*me

prologue

In the beginning, there were two of them, and they were bound by the threads of the fates. They had been men, they had been gods, and they had been something in-between. They had been brothers and they had been strangers and they had been both at the same time. Always, though, they had been together, because the Norns willed it so.

Until one day, Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld kneeling at the Tree of Life, tending to its roots, drawing runes in the sand, decided that something must be done. The brothers had fought and died and fought again. There was blood in their hands and in their terrible, bitter mouths. The time of beasts and gods was coming to an end; the realms were closing in on themselves, evolving, expanding their capabilities and their principles. They were coming into their own, and eventually they would no longer look to the skies to ease their minds and end their strife. Religion would fade into myth, and again grow into something new, better shaped and curated for the age, before it twisted away and changed again. The Norns did not worry about such things, because as long as time and space existed, so, too, would they. 

But something would have to be done, in the meantime, during this particular interval. The people of the realms still needed kings and gods to look to. They could not have rulers committing fratricide, breaking one another’s hearts, causing civic unrest. Little tornados living in the heart of the palace, consuming everything in their wake. More blood, too— on the palace steps, splattered across the golden columns. Something would have to be done.

They put their great heads together, and wondered what that might be. 

PART ONE  
1

Loki Laufeyson woke with a start, and then a headache, and then a louder, more aggressive pounding starting somewhere in his ear canal and ending at his throat. He wanted to die. No— he was dying. That was it. Finally, some higher power was showing him the mercy he deserved, and ending his life. 

His alarm, which sounded like small birds dying, went off shortly later, reminding him that he was still unbearably breathing. He sat up, and threw his cell across the room. 

There was no reason to be awake! There was no reason to have even set an alarm in the first place, except that he hadn’t set it the night before, he had set it years ago, set it for “every day of the week,” including weekends, just in case, because life still went on on the weekends even if you wanted to pretend it didn’t. Seven years ago, in fact. 

Almost seven years exactly, which was also the exact amount of time he had put into his career as a project manager at Stark Industries. It had never been his dream job, but he was good at it; he was organized and detail-oriented, and people listened to him when he spoke. The money was the best part; and although he worked the kind of hours that meant he didn’t get to enjoy most of what he was making, it felt good to have a safety net. 

“Fuck,” he said, softly, drawing his knees up to his chest. His mouth tasted sour. He had bags under his eyes, which he could not presently see, but could _feel_ there, growing bigger and darker like some Ninth Circle of Hell punishment. His hair smelled like bar, and he had fallen asleep in his socks like a sociopath. It was his God-given right to die.

He did not die.

He got out of bed instead, and dragged his treacherous body into the shower, and sat on the tile for forty-five minutes, until the water started to get cold. He did not know how he was going to pay his utility bill, or any bill, or anything ever again. His brain carefully side-stepped the knowledge that he had a rather large savings fund, because he was frugal, and knew what it was like to be broke, and launched straight into a panic. He had nothing. He had no one. He was going to starve in this apartment he could no longer afford, rationing the little Spongebob shapes out of his last box of Kraft’s macaroni and cheese one by one, until eventually there were no tiny Patricks or tiny Squidwards to eat, and his lungs collapsed because of the asbestos from the vents, which had just been lurking there to come out during a time when he could not afford to have maintenance come check, and his body would be found, eventually, by his only friend in the world, but not before the crows had gotten at it, and pecked out his once-beautiful, now-dulled and lifeless green eyes. 

He got out of the shower. 

He called his only friend.

“Hi,” Bucky said on the third ring. “You okay? Still moping? Netflix just added, like, three shitty horror movies we can binge.” 

“I’m not _moping_ ,” Loki said.

“Okay, sure.”

“I do not _mope_.”

“You sent me four texts in a row last night that just said ‘I want to die’ and photo after photo of the shots you took. _And_ no invite. You left me a voicemail about mac and cheese that I woke up to, so I had to have mac and cheese for breakfast.”

“I’m sorry,” Loki said, taking a breath, “but you must have me confused with somebody else. I don’t even know whose number this is.”

“You called me, dipshit.” 

“You’re breaking up, sorry, I can’t hear you— ”

“Hey,” Bucky interrupted. “I’m worried about you and it’s making me feel weird. This isn’t a sensation I’m comfortable with. You want me to come over?”

“No.”

“I’ll bring mac and cheese.”

“Okay.”

They sat on the couch together, sharing a pot of pasta, right off the stove, two spoons, like animals. They watched _Halloween_ , and _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ , and _When A Stranger Calls_. They watched one episode of a thirty-minute sitcom before watching _Doctor Sleep_ and then _Bride of Chucky_. They made another pot of mac and cheese and slowly Loki got over his hangover and developed a stomach ache instead, but it was okay, it was better. He was okay with, used to, being alone. But he liked the company more than he cared to admit; he liked having someone with him to laugh at all the jump-scares and make dumb comments and stretch his legs out on top of. He wasn’t necessarily difficult to get along with, but he could be stand-offish; he could come off as cold. He was hard to know, and it took some time, and he found that people often did not have the patience to try. 

That was okay. There was a time when it wasn’t, but Loki was a fast learner, and he had learned long ago that sometimes you had to accept the things that you couldn’t necessarily change about yourself, and about others. 

Bucky was a good friend, anyway— his best— and he had troubles and demons of his own, and he never questioned or judged Loki for his. Loki had known, somehow, intrinsically, from the beginning that they would always have each other’s backs. 

They spent the day like that, and at the end of the night Bucky turned to him and asked, “How long do you wanna do this for?” and Loki answered, “Two or three days,” and Bucky said, “Okay.” It was the middle of the week, and Loki knew Bucky had called out of work for this, and would do so again, and Loki took a tiny bit of the affection he had reserved in his heart, and examined it, and let himself feel it. 

When the third morning came, and he had wiped the Jaffa cake crumbs (special ordered from Amazon in case of emergencies) off of his pajamas, he decided to venture out. He dropped Bucky off at the subway station and continued walking. It was an okay idea. Lightning didn’t strike him dead on the street, nor did he crumble into a gutter halfway through his walk. His legs worked fine. He was not yet destitute. He had not starved. 

Loki had not left the house since the night of the day he got fired— “let go”— from his job, when he had walked the thirty-three blocks from Stark Industries to his apartment, stopping at four different bars on the way. He remembered at least two and a half of them. He remembered shooting whiskey alone until someone joined him, bought them rounds, gave him his number? Did he still have that? Loki could not picture the man’s face or remember his name. He figured that, if it were that forgettable, he didn’t have to, and that maybe it was better to let the (very recent) past stay in the past, and forget the fact that that night had ever happened to him altogether. 

He bought himself an unappetizing green juice for breakfast (Mistake #1), solely because he had been plying himself with garbage for the better part of the week, and decided to walk through the park (Mistake #2). The sun was out. It was a beautiful spring day. He should have been at work. Everyone else, everyone who was anyone, everyone who didn’t still live in their parents’ basements, was at work, being productive, being a functional member of society. 

Loki sat down on a bench, hard. 

He had about three and a half minutes to feel sorry for himself before something snarling and dinosaur-like started to sniff at his shoe. 

“Hello,” he said, to the ugliest bulldog he had ever seen. 

It slobbered on his foot. 

“Great,” he said, starting to stand up and then stopping at the sight of the not-ugliest man he had ever seen jogging toward him. 

“Sorry!” he was saying, and he was laughing, and he was very blond. “Shit, Peanut Butter, we talked about this. Sorry,” he said again, turning his smile toward Loki. “He never listens.”

“You named your dog Peanut Butter?” Loki asked stiffly. 

“He’s not mine,” the man said, leaning down to the beast, who had just thrown himself on his back, and patting his belly. “I just walk him on the weekends.”

A pause. “It’s the weekend?”

The man laughed again; and then, to Loki’s horror, sat down next to him. Peanut Butter rolled around in the grass beneath Loki’s feet, with no deference whatsoever to his shoes. “You okay?” he asked, turning to Loki. And then, before waiting for a response: “I’m Thor.” He stuck out his hand. 

“Loki,” Loki replied. His hands were on his lap. He forced one to fit into Thor’s. “And I’m fine.” 

“Well you didn’t know what day it was, so.”

“I’ve been on a vacation.”

“They don’t have calendars at— ” he feigned looking around “—in the park?”

“Ha ha.”

Thor grinned. It was disgusting, like looking into the sun. He was wearing board shorts, Loki noticed, and a cutoff t-shirt. Tattoos lined his arms and his chest. His hair was tied back. Loki sat there, in a Gucci belt, head-to-toe in black with bulldog slobber all over his shoe, and hated this man. 

“I should go,” Loki said, shifting as if to get up.

“You haven’t even let Peanut apologize for ruining your shoes.”

“I’m sure they aren’t ruined. I’m sure I’ll survive, even.” 

“Okay,” Thor said with another smile, and actually stood up. “Nice meeting you.” He scooped up the demonic miniature hippopotamus in his arms and made its front paw wave to Loki. “Enjoy your vacation!” 

And before Loki could say anything else, he was walking away. 

2

“This is fine,” Loki said, as he poured himself a cereal bowl of wine for dinner. In the dim light of his kitchen bar, he opened up his resume and began updating it. He considered leaving a terrible Yelp review for Stark Industries as revenge, but decided that was petty and childish. He fixed the margins so he could add more to his work experience; that he had been employed by Stark for seven years— almost a decade— had to mean something. 

He hadn’t checked his email in days. When he opened up his inbox, there was a message from the man himself.

_Hey, bud!_

_So sorry we had to lose you, but you know how these things go. Work bureaucracies, downsizing one department, upsizing another— did you know that’s a thing, too? Yeah, most of us hear about_ downsizing _, but things could actually go the entire other way— go figure. Anyway, hope there’s no hard feelings and you know you always have a reference here if you need one._

_Best of luck to you,_

_T. Stark_

Loki steepled his hands together in front of his face and closed his eyes. He concentrated very, very hard on not screaming. 

After the second bowl of wine, he decided to leave that Yelp review after all. 

*

The first week felt impossible, but the days did get easier. They did. Loki did not exist in a world where he was not hyper-critical of himself and his accomplishments, but he had started sleeping a full seven hours at night as opposed to the usual four and a half, and sometimes when he woke up to the sun shining on his face he almost felt happy. He bought croissants and coffee from his fancy corner Upper West Side bakery and took long walks in the park in the mornings. 

It was a week before he saw Thor again, in another pair of boardshorts, in another cutoff t-shirt, walking the same hellspawn mouth-breather. 

“Hello,” Loki said coolly as they passed one another, going the opposite directions.

“Hey!” Thor said, steering the absurd animal around so that they could walk alongside Loki, back in the direction they had just come from. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I live here,” Loki said.

“Terrible vacation. I would have at least seen a different borough.”

“Like what, Brooklyn? I thought you were going the other way.”

“I was,” Thor grinned. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Loki said. 

“You were fine last weekend, too.”

“Is that a crime? Would you rather I was miserable?”

“Geez,” Thor said, putting his hands up in surrender, “fine is good. Fine is fine.”

Loki sipped from his coffee and looked forward. Joggers passed them by and he wondered what sort of sick mind it took to want to take up running. He glanced at Thor, whose biceps were bigger than the palm of Loki’s hand and felt like he probably had his answer.

“It’s a really nice day,” Thor continued.

“Yes.”

“You don’t talk much,” Thor said.

“I don’t know you.” 

Thor shrugged. “You could.”

“For what reason?”

“Well,” Thor said, and to Loki’s amusement genuinely seemed like he was thinking about it. “I guess because after we said goodbye the other day, Peanut Butter asked about you.” 

Loki covered a smile with his coffee cup. “Did he.”

“Yeah, he said _why is that man so sad_?”

Loki, who had known the exact moment he saw Thor what an idiot he was, darkened. “Perhaps it was because he was occupied with ruining my shoes.”

“Did he ruin them? I thought you said he didn't! I can pay you for a new pair, no problem. I would have insisted before, but— ” 

“No,” Loki said. He stopped, looking Thor in the eye. “I prefer to walk alone.” 

“I didn’t mean to offend you.” 

“No one ever seems to mean it, yet it keeps happening anyway.” 

They looked at one another; the air between them taut. “So you are,” Thor said, after a moment.

“What.”

“Sad.”

Loki turned on his heel and walked away. 

His apartment had started to depress him during the day. It was _not_ actually a depressing apartment; on the contrary, it was spacious and tasteful, with floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed brick. He had not overly decorated it, but he had a small succulent collection in lieu of a cat, which he had always wanted but felt too guilty leaving alone all day while he worked. Now, though, he could do anything. He could buy fifteen cats, and when he finished his last tiny Patrick macaroni and died, they could eat him before the crows did. The bottom line was that it was a beautiful apartment, and it would stay that way— beautiful and unlived in— because Loki had started taking his laptop around town and working out of coffee shops. 

The best one was just three blocks away from him, nestled between an Italian restaurant and an art gallery. It was cozy without being unsightly, and quiet enough in the mornings that he could think in peace. Most days he stuck with a coffee but at least once a week he let himself try something warm and freshly baked from the pastry counter, and was pleasantly surprised that he had yet to be disappointed. The young woman who owned the place was not overly friendly, but instead seemed like the type of person you would want on speed dial during an emergency. She had a quick, capable energy about her, like a fencer or a boxer. Loki had liked her immediately.

Most mornings this was his favorite place to be. It gave him some misguided sense of purpose to walk out of his door and go somewhere and sit down and turn on his laptop. Other mornings, such as this morning, he regretted leaving the house at all, because the moment he walked in he saw Thor sitting at the counter, laughing with one of the baristas, and felt an unwarranted panic spreading inside of him. 

Loki ignored this; he ignored Thor. He waited until the barista noticed him and without looking anywhere but into her eyes, ordered a latte. 

“That’s— ”

“Loki!” Thor said, brightly. It was intolerable that he looked genuinely happy.

“— $4.75,” the barista finished, casting Thor a mock-glare. “Some men have no concept of inside voices,” she said to Loki. 

“Correct,” Loki said, and went to wait for his drink. 

Thor sidled up next to him.

“Are you following me now?”

“Uh, I was here first.”

“So?” Loki asked. “Maybe you knew I’d be here.” 

“How?”

“Maybe you’ve been stalking me for days.” 

Thor laughed. “Are you a crazy person? Is that why you never smile and dress like that in 70 degree weather?”

“Dress like _what_?”

“Like you’re going to a celebrity funeral.”

“I’m sorry— is this man bothering you?” The barista handed Loki his mug and was pointedly looking from him to Thor and back again. 

“Very much,” Loki said. 

“Because I’ve been dying for a reason to get him banned from here,” she said.

“Don’t listen to her,” Thor said. “Val’s a renowned liar. She actually spends all morning counting down the minutes until I come by.” 

“I come here every morning,” Loki said. “I haven’t seen you once.”

“I’m a busy man. That’s why it’s so exciting when I finally show up.”

“Really,” Loki stated. “Does living in a surf shop take a lot out of you?”

Val cackled at that. “Actually,” she said, leaning back against the counter, crossing her arms, “neither of you are allowed to leave. This is my entertainment for the day.” 

“I don’t have time for this,” Loki said. 

“Why, what do you do?” Val asked. 

Loki looked at her, gripping his latte in one hand and his laptop in the other. “I work.” 

“...Yeah.” 

He didn’t need to speak to these people. He didn’t owe them any kind of answer. He turned and stalked back to his table, in the back corner, where no one else could possibly bother him, because he looked so clearly and so dangerously like a walking “do not disturb” sign. He did not see Val mouth _weirdo_ to Thor, or Thor grinning at her. He did not care either way, what anyone thought of him. What he cared about was his peace, and his quiet, and— 

Thor slid into the chair across from him.

“For the love of god,” Loki muttered, loud enough for him to hear.

“Look,” Thor said. He put his dumb giant arms on the table so Loki could see his dumb tattoos, which were: a compass, a goblet filled with skulls, a lion with a crown, some arrangement of runes, the phases of the moon, and a rather strange looking tree. It was almost too much to take. “I know you’re busy, but I feel like there must be a reason we keep running into each other.”

“We live in the same area and both like coffee?”

“It could be that,” Thor nodded. 

“But?”

“Nah,” Thor said. “No ‘but.’ Do you want to get a drink with me some time?”

“No.” 

And to Loki’s surprise, Thor nodded again. “Okay,” he said with a smile. He stood up. “It was nice seeing you.”

Loki didn’t say anything. He felt weird. Men always insisted. 

From behind his laptop, he watched as Thor walked back to the coffee bar and resumed his conversation with the sly-eyed barista, trying not to overthink the situation or whether there was something possibly stuck in his teeth to make Thor give up so quickly. It made him angry. He slammed his laptop shut and walked out of the cafe and got very little done the rest of the day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In that moment, what Loki meant to say was: “fuck you.” Or: “you’re really thinking too deeply into this.” Or: “hey, Fuck You.” 
> 
> Instead: “I lost my job,” Loki blurted, surprising himself. 
> 
> “Oh,” Thor said, because that was kind of an insane and unprompted response to his incredibly intelligent musings on life, and then, very quickly— “I’m sorry,” because he wasn’t a total monster with no sense of compassion. 

3

Thor Odinson dreamt. 

In his dreams, he walked down a dimly lit hall made of stone and his footfalls echoed into the dark. He almost did not recognize his body in the clothes he wore, armor across his chest and down his forearms, a cape at his back. His hair was long and braided. He could almost see himself outside of himself, his face drawn and grim, a seriousness to his spine, his shoulders. 

He walked with purpose although he did not know where he was going. He felt compelled; his feet guiding him like he’d been in this same spot many times before. In his mind he held a single vision: a golden helmet sitting on top of a throne, its curved horns gleaming. There was something he knew, something ominous and threatening, right on the edge of his thoughts, teetering towards being revealed and then disappearing again. He walked on. The corridor seemed to extend beyond him. He walked on. 

There were moments of clarity, where he could feel a wetness between his body and his tunic, his fingers clenching up, white at the tips, lifeless. There were other moments too, and in these he just walked. Up ahead he could almost make out the glow of another room, an open door, a window left ajar, but before he could reach it, inevitably and with no ceremony— 

he woke up.

He woke to sun on his skin and the sheets warm with it and stretched out like a starfish on the bed. Then he promptly forgot even the simplest of details of the dream, and got up.

The nice thing about Thor’s life was that he made his own schedule. The difficult thing about Thor’s life was that being your own boss seemed to signal to others that you could essentially slack off all the time and no one would notice. On the contrary, Thor cared very much about his little shop, which he had meticulously built up over the years and which had practically cost him his relationship with his father. Then again, he always felt that if it wasn’t his career, it would be something else.

As a kid, he’d been overly active and aggressive, fourteen cans of Monster energy drink shaken with Nerds Rope and stuffed into a child’s 55-pound body. He fought. He climbed. He fell out of things. He fell into things. At ages 8, 9, and 12 he broke his right arm, left wrist, and right arm respectively. His parents were called into the principal’s office— was there something going on at home? Any signs of abuse?— Odin was looked at very carefully. But no. No abuse. Just one boy with the energy of three arsonists on speed, hoping to achieve the record for “most black eyes ever” by age 15. 

His parents thought he’d grow out of it, and they were wrong. He got worse. Running into things turned into punching holes in walls turned into decking a junior his third week of freshman year and nearly ruining his chances of ever coming back to high school. Thor was put on a very specific schedule: football practice every day after school, an additional hour of cardio after homework, and anger management sessions three times a week. This kept him at bay for the rest of his freshman year before he started getting antsy again. The school gave him an extra elective in lieu of study hall and to everyone’s surprise, he chose drawing. 

He wasn’t a natural. He didn’t pick up a pencil and sketch the next _Mona Lisa_ , which in his opinion, wasn’t all that spectacular anyway. But he did practice, every day, sometimes in the margins of his notebooks when he should have been paying attention in History, and sometimes at the dinner table instead of listening to Odin’s ravings on United States foreign policy. Listening to Odin did nothing to help his anger crisis, Thor learned, very quickly. It was easier to politely nod along and keep track of the days he had left until he could move out. 

Now, walking into his little tattoo shop on the corner of Prince and Lafayette, he felt grateful for the life he had made himself, even if it wasn’t perfect. 

Heimdall, who worked as his receptionist when he felt like it, was already sitting at the front desk, reading the paper. Heimdall was one of Thor’s oldest and dearest friends, had a law degree from a highly accredited institution, had clerked for the Second Circuit, and had worked in FinTech for three years before walking out one afternoon, because Thor had called, and asked for his help. 

(“I didn’t mean _quit your six-figure job_ ,” Thor had said.

Heimdall had shrugged, and clapped Thor on the back, and said: “I was thinking about it anyway.”)

“Is the world still ending?” Thor asked, pulling the agenda book toward him.

“Yes.”

“Has it gotten better or worse?”

Heimdall pulled the paper down, raising an eyebrow at Thor. “Compared to what?”

“Yesterday?”

Heimdall studied him for a moment. “Worse,” he said, and stuck his nose back into the paper.

“Okay, great,” Thor mumbled, running a finger down the appointment list. “Why are we still letting Barton in here?”

“What?”

“Clint Barton. That weird bird guy. He has been coming in through that door and walking right back out for _months_ , have you really not noticed?”

“Your clients are your business, Thor.”

“He’s gonna have to start putting down a deposit,” Thor said, crossing his arms. “And I’m keeping it if he changes his mind about the design or the colors or the linework or the size or the tilt of that fucking bird’s head one more time.” 

“I’d like to see that,” Heimdall said. He put the paper down and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in a parody of Thor’s indignation. “I’d like to see you put your foot down in a civil manner.” 

“I put my foot down all the time.”

“You’re going to ignore the part where I said ‘civil manner,’ aren’t you?”

“Sorry, buddy, can’t talk— work to do,” Thor said, grinning, and walked off to set up his station. 

The morning flew by; he’d been working with his first client on and off over the years and their conversation was easy, fluid, as if they were friends. Thor knew that they weren’t friends, just like he knew that Maria definitely worked for some kind of special ops force that murdered bad guys in back alleys with meat cleavers and managed to get away with it every time. Maria was _so_ hot and _so_ terrifying that Thor would not have been surprised if she showed up to the coffee shop one day as the third member of Sif and Val’s “white man tears” squad. He didn’t want that day to come, because he was already outnumbered, and because if he were being honest with himself, which he tried often to do, (even if he wasn’t always entirely successful at it), Sif and Val already had no trouble making him cry on their own. 

They were the worst. He loved them so much.

What _did_ surprise Thor was the piece Maria had chosen this time: an ugly looking eagle in a circle. 

“More birds,” he said, as he placed the mark-up on her tricep.

“Excuse me?”

Thor shook his head. “No— it’s… it’s cool.”

Maria snorted. “You’re a bad liar. I know it’s ugly.”

“I can make you something better, you know.”

“No,” Maria said, taking a cursory glance at it in the mirror, casual like it wasn’t a forever thing, and then sitting back down in the chair. “This is fine.” 

“I don’t have an eraser.” 

Maria gave him a small, rare smile. “Ink me up, Odinson.” 

So he did.

The day went on. His other tattooists, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, came in. They looked hungover and defeated from the night before but chugged two Gatorades each and good-naturedly rallied. Thor would have let them have the day off if they asked, but they never asked. Even when they were kids, and Thor wanted to do something— long night drives and weekend camping trips when they all had finals the next week, fake IDs and hotboxing cars— they never refused him. He wouldn’t have gotten upset if they had. He never directed his anger toward them, never bullied or pressured them in the way teenagers do sometimes, but they followed him all the same, showed up for him, stood behind him. It was a kind of blessing, this unwavering loyalty, like something otherworldly Thor wasn’t quite sure he deserved. Or maybe they knew intrinsically that he would die for them, on the spot, without hesitation. 

“Busy night?” Thor asked, after Maria had left, pulling the latex gloves off of his hands. 

“You should have come,” Fandral said. “Volstagg did five picklebacks and danced to _Shake It Off_.” 

“Not the first time.”

“Won’t be the last, either,” Volstagg said with a satisfied grin. 

“You never come out with us anymore,” Hogun said.

“I came out with you last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday,” Thor said.

“Yeah, I meant you never come out with us anymore on _Tuesdays_.”

Thor made a face. “Nothing happens on Tuesdays.”

“Uh, did you miss the part with the picklebacks?” Fandral asked.

“Can you guys please get to fucking work,” Thor said. “Go clean something. Mop under your station.”

“Isn’t that technically Heimdall’s job?” Volstagg asked.

“I don’t know what Heimdall does,” Thor said. “I don’t know why he even shows up anymore.”

“Maybe he’s lonely.”

“I can hear you,” Heimdall said from the front, which was really only fifteen feet away. “I can hear every word you’re saying.” 

“Are you lonely?” Hogun asked, at the same time Volstagg said, “Can you make Hogun mop the floor?” 

Heimdall looked at them all, one by one, like a stern police-owl. Then he said, “I’m clocking out for the day,” and left them to their own sorry devices. 

*

The week was uneventful, but the nights weren’t.

Every night that passed by he felt himself nearing the door, the light, the end of the hall. And every night, just as he began to reach for solid wood against the palm of his hand he woke, sometimes sweat-drenched and gasping, others as though woken by a gentle breeze. Regardless, he forgot what he had tried so hard to remember with his eyes closed. Something was waiting for him— a throne, a crown, someone made of black and gold smoke. In his dreams he felt a longing and a heartache he had never experienced in his own life. And even though he couldn’t remember the source of these feelings or their meaning as he went about his daily activities, he could sense a hollow in his chest growing, getting bigger, gnawing like bats.

4

Valhalla was closed on Sundays and open on Saturdays, but Thor didn’t come in until late afternoon, and he only took walk-ins. He believed in the weekend. Someone had once ridiculously told him that if he picked a career he loved, it would never feel like work. This was wrong. Work was work, and Thor had no interest in making his life about one thing only. He walked the dogs in his building because he loved them, and because it gave him an excuse to be up at 6 in the mornings, and because— more recently— it also gave him an excuse to run into Loki, who was ridiculous and mysterious and beautiful. 

Up until now, Thor had no belief in fate or destiny or mercury retrograde, which Sif told him was when he couldn’t make major life decisions without checking in with her first. It was good advice, in a way. Last time mercury did whatever it was doing to ruin everybody’s lives, Thor had been dangerously close to selling all of his assets, (including the tattoo shop), and moving to California. As a result, Sif put a hold on his credit card and insisted they marathon all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings until Thor forgot what he was planning on doing in the first place. 

It worked, and it turned out that California was probably not the best “on a whim” idea, but at the end of the day Thor was still not a Believer. He felt, deep in his heart, that while witches were kind of cool and sexy, they were still ultimately Nonsense, and no amount of charging a crystal under a new moon would bring your lover back. Tarot didn’t make sense— you could make a little card picture mean anything you wanted it to mean. Astrological predictions worked for everyone, regardless of your sign. Nothing that happened in life happened because it was predestined to, or because there was some kind of cosmic plan, or because you wrote in an intention journal every day and prayed to three different gods. 

Life, Thor thought, was pretty fucking cool— he was having a great time with it, personally, if you ignored all the war and poverty— but that was all it was. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.

So when Thor met Loki, and felt an instant attraction, and then lost him again at the park, he didn’t think anything else of it. And when he saw him again, and accidentally insulted him somehow, and still felt that mild (but unimportant, really) attraction, he didn’t think anything else of it. And then again, when Loki walked into Sif’s coffee shop, where Thor had been the morning it opened, and at least once a month since, and had never seen anyone even closely resembling Loki before, Thor tried very hard not to think anything else of it. 

It wasn’t easy. Not thinking about Loki still somehow revolved around Loki, who had only said a total of five words to him, and acted like Thor liked to spit in his shoe while he wasn’t paying attention. 

The weekend after their Bifrost encounter, when he took Peanut Butter out for a nice game of “throw the frisbee and say goodbye to it forever because this dog is only interested in rubbing his butt in the dirt,” Thor made the conscious effort not to look for Loki. He didn’t want to seem crazy— one of those guys who didn’t take no for an answer— but it was a big park and he had been there first and he felt like it was okay to share it, even if things could get a little awkward at any given point. Which was why Thor was caught off-guard when Loki approached him first. 

“Not very good at that, is he?” He said, striding up to them as Thor was trying to show Peanut how to fetch a stick. 

“No,” Thor said, trying to hide his pleasure at seeing Loki, “he’s great at it. Watch.” He threw the stick, and the bulldog, nonplussed, stared up at him. “See?”

Loki laughed. He was wearing a black denim jacket, and to Thor’s continuing surprise, shrugged it off to lay on the grass and sit down on. He was in a thin black tee underneath, the first evidence that he even _had_ arms, and Thor busied himself with finding another stick to lose, to keep from looking at him. They were quiet for a while— Thor trying (and failing) to encourage Peanut Butter to do anything but just sit there drooling, and Loki watching the both of them, so expressionless that Thor couldn’t even begin to guess what he was thinking. 

Somehow it was Loki that broke the silence, anyway.

“Peanut Butter is a terrible name for a dog.”

Thor threw his head back and laughed. He left the dog where it was and sat in the grass next to Loki. “I think it’s cute,” he said.

“You think _that_ is cute?” Loki asked, gesturing over to the 65lbs miniature dinosaur with his head. When he was taken aback his eyes widened; he looked younger. Thor realized he _was_ young, younger than him by a few years at least, that it was probably the stress of frowning all the time that had aged him. 

“Yeah. Look at him.”

“He doesn’t even look like a dog. He looks like he was made by someone who once had some kind of idea of what a dog looked like, but only had a hippopotamus to work with.” 

Thor laughed again. “It’s like when something is so ugly it’s cute.” 

“That isn’t a thing,” Loki said. “Ugly things are just ugly.” 

“Ugly is pretty objective, though.” 

“That’s because no one these days has any standards.” 

“Wow, Loki,” Thor said, leaning back on his forearms. “I didn’t think you had this many words in you.” 

“I can leave, if you like.” 

“At least wait for Peanut to fetch a single stick.”

Loki crossed his legs, his hands resting neatly under his knees so that he almost looked casual, relaxed. “If I did that, we’d be waiting here forever.” 

Thor gave him a sidelong look. “I know,” he said. And, because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut: “Why’d you come?”

“I walk here every morning.” 

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Loki said, getting up. Thor inwardly cursed. “I recommend you take him for a bath. Have a nice day.” 

“Yeah,” Thor said, “you too.”

He did end up taking Loki’s advice, after all. He left Peanut Butter at the groomer’s and texted his neighbor, who only went by Fury, to let him know where he could pick him up later. He went by the cafe to annoy Val but it turned out to be an atypically busy day, and she shooed him off. He found, time and time again, his thoughts drifting back to Loki, to the cold-water-on-an-empty-stomach feeling in him, yawning like the sea, tumultuous unrest. The next Monday at Valhalla he made pleasant conversation with his clients and spent most of the afternoon working on a bigger piece, a hydra wrecking a ship, getting the eyes just right. Monsters always came easy to him. He liked to think there was room somewhere for them too.

The door opened, and a young man with a lip piercing came in. Thor, who was the only one in the shop at the moment, looked up from his work.

“Hey,” the young man said. “Do you have time for a walk-in?” 

“Sure,” Thor said. “Come on over.”

It took him fifteen minutes to draw up the design and find the right placement for it— a snake wrapped around a dagger on his inner forearm. It looked _cool_ , Thor thought, even for one of the most cliche tattoos anyone could ever think of. It still looked badass. Thor had drawn up his fair share of unoriginal art, but nevertheless he tried to make every piece a little different than the one before it, something with his own mark, something that was quintessentially him. He was by no means an Artist with a capital A, and no camera crew was about to show up and base a reality show around his little shop, but he still cared about his work, and he still took pride in it, and in making his clients happy. 

The young man, who had introduced himself as Pietro, began to fidget in his seat, which Thor took to be nerves. 

“We can pause whenever you need a break,” Thor said, pouring the ink out.

“I’m not worried,” Pietro said, drumming his hands on his knees. “This is just something—” he shifted again, pulling a leg underneath him, “— I do.”

“Okay,” Thor said with a tight smile. “Can you fucking stop though.”

“It’s distracting,” Pietro said. “I know. I get told that a lot.” 

“Yeah, and you know, I have vibrating needles in my hands.” 

“Yeah,” Pietro said, eyes wide, nodding, his knee shaking. He seemed to notice and made himself stop. “Okay, cool.”

“Okay,” Thor said, and dipped the gun into the ink. “Shift your body toward me more.”

Pietro did. Thor clicked the gun on. Pietro’s leg began to shake under him. It was almost impressive— would have been, if it weren’t so annoying— that he appeared not to have an ounce of control over his own body. As though it was moving on its own, frantic and agitated, yet completely separate from his demeanor, which was surprisingly calm. 

Thor clicked the tattoo gun off and sat back. He made himself smile. 

“I’m still doing it, huh?”

“Yeah, buddy.” 

“Sorry— sometimes— I can’t turn it off sometimes. It happens on its own.”

“It looks that way,” Thor said slowly. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” Pietro said. He sounded more insistent now. “It’s for my twin sister. She’s so great and cool, I want her to know I always have her back.” 

He looked like he had more to say, so Thor waited for him to continue.

“You know like, there’s all this terrible shit in the world, and it’s always happening, there’s no stopping the _really, really_ bad stuff, like war or natural disasters, or people are always leaving you behind, deciding they don’t want to take care of you or deal with you anymore, but we shared— you know— before we even knew about anything else in the world, before we were even fully developed, we knew each other, and I just want her to know that no matter what happens I’ll be, like, the weapon for her. And if she feels like she can’t act a certain way, because she doesn’t want to be a bad guy, I’ll do that for her, too.” 

Thor nodded along as Pietro talked, thinking about how strange twins were. Thor didn’t think he had the emotional capacity to feel that way toward someone else.

Pietro continued to talk, and as he did, he forgot to vibrate at an inhuman frequency, and Thor was able to start the linework. He did the dagger first, no problem, and then began to trace the snake’s head. He had gotten through the curve of it when blinding light shot through his head. 

“ _Fuck_ ,’ he said, lifting the gun back.

“What?” Pietro asked, alarmed, turning his head to look at the tattoo. “What is it? Is it me? Am I doing it again?”

“No,” Thor said. “No, sorry, it’s— everything’s fine, I just bit my tongue. Give me a minute.” 

“Oh, okay,” Pietro said, looking relieved. “I do that sometimes. I do that a lot, actually— like whenever I’m eating something soft, or like— it happens the most with tomatoes I’ve realized, whenever I eat something with a tomato in it, I always— ”

Thor had stopped listening. His brain felt like it was being pierced, a thin laser beam pointed right through his skull, lobotomizing him somehow. He hoped the part of it that helped him draw would stay intact. He wondered what functions he could afford to lose. He wondered if he was really this much of a baby, to crumple over a headache; he couldn’t remember the last time he even had one. Did they always feel like this? Was it an aneurysm? What did an aneurysm feel like? Would he ever have his health back again? 

“Hey,” he made himself say. “I’ll give you a discount if we can finish this another day.” 

“Oh, sweet,” Pietro said, muffled between the nail he was gnawing on. “Sounds great!”

Thor wrapped the arm up, handed him a print-out of caring instructions, and sent him on his way. He took two ibuprofen and chugged a bottle of water and put his head down on his desk, where it promptly continued to pound, until at some point he was able to doze off, and dream.

5

In this dream, he saw his father.

Thor and Odin didn’t get along the way they used to, when Thor was a boy and hung on every word his father said like it was truth or gospel or both. Some men liked to be worshipped; it was in their nature. Thor understood this and couldn’t exactly fault Odin for it, for being who he inherently was, but he could learn to distance himself from how inadequate and attention-hungry it made him feel. 

It was a double-edged sword. When Thor was good, when Thor listened and nodded and took the path his father had very carefully laid out for him, he was rewarded like a prince. When he was good, he was loved, placed on a pedestal where the only way to go was down. When he was bad, when he disobeyed, when he disagreed, when he decided he wanted to do different things with his life, he was knocked down— an ungrateful monster, spoiled and petulant, unworthy of all the effort it had taken to raise him. It was easier, now, to love his father from afar. To see him for the stubborn old man he was, and accept him the way you’d accept a persistent cold. 

In this dream, however, Odin took his son’s hands and begged him to stay. He spoke with soft urgency, tired and pleading, like a man who saw the world around him burning, needing it to change. It reminded Thor briefly of the night he left his home for the final time, to bartend and couch surf and figure it out on his own, except there was love in his father’s eyes instead of disappointment, and some kind of understanding that had never been there before. In his dream Thor felt a persistent yearning in his heart that he could not put his finger on; he saw the world beyond him expand and multiply, open up to other times and peoples and realms, a kaleidoscope of colors and countries and languages, all begging him to stay and open his eyes and look at this moment, as though there would never be any other moments like it. He heard a distant laugh, sharp and bitter, and it turned into crying, a piercing, lonely sound that broke Thor’s heart. If he could get to it, he could understand. He knew that if he could get to it, he would be home. 

When he woke up again, it was dark. His neck ached from the awkward position he had slept in, but the painkillers had kicked in, and he was feeling better— if dazed— than earlier. The night air was his favorite shade of blue, dark and bright at the same time like it was holding a secret, and when he stepped out into it he felt grateful— somehow— for something he could not name. 

He walked. He was hungry. He walked right into Loki. 

“How,” he began, before Loki even opened his mouth, “how are you everywhere?”

“It’s a small city,” Loki answered, without missing a beat. His hair brushed his shoulders and for a brief moment of insanity Thor felt like he would legitimately die if he didn’t know what it smelled like. 

“It’s not,” Thor said. “It’s literally filled to the brim with people I’ve never seen twice.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not _small_.” A pause. “What are you doing?”

“I’m walking— what does it look like I’m doing?”

To Thor’s surprise, Loki smiled. “I meant downtown. You’re always in the park with that… animal you try to pass off as a dog.” 

Thor laughed. “I work here. I have a shop a few blocks away.” 

“Oh? Selling surfboards? Overpriced baseball hats that say one, made-up word on them?”

“A tattoo shop.”

“That’s just as bad.” Loki picked at a piece of thread on his jacket. “What sort of things do you tattoo?”

“Surfboards,” Thor said. Loki made a face. 

“I’m going for dinner now.”

“Congratulations,” Thor said. 

They looked at one another. “Okay,” Thor said. “I’ll walk you to dinner. SoHo is just incredibly dangerous this time of night, and you’re so small and vulnerable-looking… _hey!_ ” Loki had smacked his arm. Another surprise— that it hurt, that Loki had touched him, that Thor had to hide a smile because of this touch that hurt. And another— the familiarity of it, though they had never done this before, though they did not know each other at all— something in the slant of storefront twinkle lights and the intimate laughter of passing couples fading into the background— the weather just warm enough to be comfortable still, scented with Italian food, sandalwood perfume, and cigarette smoke— Thor felt a comfort and a recognition in it that he could not pin to another specific time or location. He didn’t want the feeling to end; he didn’t want the walk to end. Even if they never spoke to one another again, it was enough just to walk side-by-side, his hand brushing Loki’s from time to time, the knowledge of his presence. 

“Here,” Loki said, abruptly throwing Thor out of his thoughts and back into the present. He walked in through the door before Thor could say “okay” or “goodbye” or “I’m starving actually,” leaving Thor no choice but to awkwardly follow him in. 

“We’ll sit outside,” Loki was saying to the hostess, who was then leading them to a table, handing them their menus, and leaving them be. 

“Oh, so we’re doing this?” Thor asked, after the hostess had left, and earning nothing but a scowl in response. Loki buried his head into the menu, which allowed Thor a moment to process what was happening, whether it was really happening, and try not to question why it was happening. The restaurant was nice. It was not what Thor had in mind when he invited Loki out for a drink days ago; he had imagined some place louder, more crowded, thousands of excuses to have to lean in closer and speak into each other’s ears. The kind of place that’s bad for conversation and very good to get just tipsy enough to find your way into someone else’s bedroom. He wondered what Loki’s bedroom looked like. He wondered if it was as tidy as he seemed. 

This restaurant evoked none of those feelings. This was a place you could bring friends or someone you actually liked. Someone you knew already, because there was nothing to do but talk to one another, to enjoy each other’s company. There was nowhere else to look, or to disappear off to. 

They ordered a glass of wine each, without looking at one another, until finally Thor leaned over the table and whispered: “It’s just that you said you didn’t want to get a drink with me.”

Loki peered at him from the top of his menu, just dark eyebrows and big, green eyes. 

“And,” Thor continued in a whisper, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but right now, you ordered a drink.”

The eyes narrowed.

“And,” Thor said, “ _I_ ordered a drink.”

Loki snapped the menu down onto the table. “Are you going to make me regret this?”

“Is it a date?”

“Bold of you to assume I swing that way.”

“No offense, but it’d be bolder of me to assume you don’t.”

Loki made a very big show of carefully studying the appetizers. “And do you?” he asked, as if it were an afterthought.

“Do I what?”

“Swing that way.” 

“I don’t really have a preference,” Thor said with a shrug. 

“So you just fuck anything that comes your way?” 

“Oh,” Thor said, leaning back in, his forearms on the table, something wicked in his expression. “Did we get to fucking so soon?”

To his pleasure, Loki blushed. He looked away, searching for the waiter, so that Thor could admire the curve of his jaw. His cheekbones looked like they would hurt, if you kissed them. Thor realized a beat too late that he was thinking about kissing them, about kissing him. 

“I don’t really understand,” he tried again, “what’s happening here. Not _here_ -here, but in our lives-here. Out of nowhere, thirty years into my life, twelve years of living in this city, and I’ve never run into someone so much before. Are you completely _sure_ you aren’t stalking me?”

In that moment, what Loki _meant_ to say was: “fuck you.” Or: “you’re really thinking too deeply into this.” Or: “hey, Fuck You.” 

Instead: “I lost my job,” Loki blurted, surprising himself. 

“Oh,” Thor said, because that was kind of an insane and unprompted response to his incredibly intelligent musings on life, and then, very quickly— “I’m sorry,” because he wasn’t a total monster with no sense of compassion. 

“It’s fine,” Loki said. A waive of his hand, as though it really was fine. “It isn’t, of course. It isn’t fine at all. It has aggravated me to no end, and every morning when I wake up there’s a moment where I remember I don’t have to get out of bed at all, or brush my teeth, or take a shower, or do anything, because I have nowhere to be.” He caught himself then; Thor could physically see the small intake of breath, the tension in his shoulders, whole-bodily making himself slow down and shut up. 

“That’s why,” Loki continued after a moment, “you haven’t seen me around before. I had someplace to be then.” 

“You still have someplace to be,” Thor said.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, yeah. Peanut has really taken a liking to you. It’d break his rotund little heart if you stopped coming around to see him.”

“I don’t come around to see him,” Loki said.

“Who do you come around to see, then?”

“No,” Loki said. He shook his head. “Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll be disappointed.” He decided to change the subject. “Why does that animal have an owner if you’re the one that takes care of him?”

Thor smiled. “His owner’s pretty busy. I think he’s in the CIA or something, secretly. He’s got an eyepatch.”

“You would know a man with an eyepatch.”

This time, Thor laughed. “I like to keep my circle as diverse as possible.”

“Next you’ll tell me your best friend is a lesbian.”

“She is, actually,” Thor said smoothly. “You’ve met her— she owns the Bifrost with her girlfriend.”

“ _Sif_?”

“Does it surprise you that she’s gay?”

“No,” Loki said, honestly, “it surprises me that you’re her best friend.”

“We go back. I’ve known her since we were in diapers.”

“Did you move here together?”

“No,” Thor said with a shake of his head. “Sif always knew what she wanted, but it took me some time to get there. She helped a lot, though. Her presence. It’s nice to know you’re landing where the people you love are. And I mean, now— I feel like everyone always wants to be somewhere else, but nights like this remind me of why I moved here in the first place.”

“Why was that?”

“You know— the adventure! The romance! The free museums on Friday nights.”

“Which museums are free on Friday nights?” Loki asked, felt absolutely compelled to ask, to which museum this man was going to in his boardshorts.

“Modern Art,” Thor said. “It gets pretty crowded and someone is always coughing on you, but the Rothkos are still the same.”

“ _Mark_ Rothko?”

“Yeah.”

“You go to the Museum of Modern Art to look at _Mark Rothko_ ’s paintings.”

“What do you have against him?”

“No— it’s not,” Loki started, then stopped, stopped before he said something completely rude to this complete stranger. 

“Oh, I get it,” Thor said, giving him a sly, sidelong look. He didn’t seem upset, though, or even mildly put-off. 

“It’s just unexpected.”

“Because I’m attractive, or because I’m cheerful?”

Loki seemed, for the first time, to be at a loss for words. 

Thor threw his head back to laugh. “You’ve made a lot of assumptions about me in no time at all.”

“As you said. We keep running into one another. And you’ve made the assumption that I’m stalking you when really I’m sure it’s the other way around.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Thor said. “I’m not that kind of guy.”

“No,” Loki said, thoughtful for a moment. “I’m sure you aren’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going out was for people who didn’t have couches, Loki told himself, manically, standing in front of the mirror and brushing his hair. Going out was for people who didn’t have couches, clearly, because otherwise they would be sitting at home enjoying the expensive couches they had bought. Who went out, anymore, in this economy? People like Thor, Loki thought. Which was so obvious— should have dawned on him ages ago— Thor was a person without a couch.

6

The problem, Loki thought, the _glaringly_ obvious problem, was the complete lack of one. For all he could see, there was nothing wrong with Thor. He was irritating, to be sure, as all people were in their existence, but if Loki had to share the world with other humans they might as well have all done him the favor of looking like the way Thor looked. He was charming; he took Loki off-guard. It had been a lifetime since anyone had surprised him, and although a very instinctive part of him wanted to resist it, just to prove a point, the other part of him, the stupid, traitorous part of him, was lonely, and had been for some time.

He didn’t like to admit it. Not even to Bucky, who knew him well enough to know, without it being admitted to him. And there was really no one else— Loki hadn’t spoken to his abusive father or sneering brothers in years. He had gotten into plenty of trouble alone in high school, kept to himself while paying his way through college, and spent most of his time at Stark Industries giving orders to subordinates, which was not a position that led to many friends. Even the men who paid him attention, the ones who were insistent, only wanted one or two nights; they were put off by his coldness, his dry sense of humor, his unwillingness to bite his tongue. 

He didn’t let anyone in, because people were cruel and undeserving, and because he was fine and functional on his own. But Thor had sat through dinner and taken his cutting comments good-naturedly, and he had made him laugh, and he had paid the bill. And at the end of the night, when they had walked together from the subway to Loki’s block, Thor had only said goodnight, and smiled, and turned away. 

He called Bucky.

“Hi,” Bucky answered on the second ring. “I paused sex with my husband to make sure you were still alive, because I haven’t heard from you in two fucking weeks. Or is this someone asking for a ransom? I don’t have any money.”

“We’re playing _Scrabble_!” came Steve’s voice, exasperated, from somewhere in the room.

“Like I said,” Bucky said, flatly. 

“I texted you,” Loki finally had a chance to say. It was a lie; he hadn’t texted at all.

“When?”

“Look, there’s a serious problem.”

“I know,” Bucky said, munching on something loudly. “You only call me when there’s a serious problem.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is. You’re the worst friend. You forgot my birthday.”

“Shit— Bucky— ”

Bucky cackled. “My birthday’s in March, asshat. But that’s for being MIA and also for interrupting sex with my husband.”

In the background, weakly, Loki heard: “ _Scrabble_!” 

“I’m sorry,” Loki said. “It wasn’t personal. It’s hard to think of things to say now that my life has no meaning.”

“That’s dark, Loki.”

“Fuck, I know. I’m really leaning into the depression right now.”

“Just right now?”

“Shut up and listen to me, Barnes.”

“Okay, okay,” Bucky said. Loki could hear him shifting around, arranging couch pillows and getting comfortable. “I’m all ears.”

“I met someone terrible.” 

Bucky waited for him to continue. Loki _knew_ he was waiting, could picture him, shooing Steve out of the room for privacy, despite the fact that he would later end up telling him everything anyway, in the quiet of their warm room, their warm bed. Loki sighed.

“I’ve been running into him everywhere— all over Manhattan. I ran into him at Central Park and two days later he was sitting at the coffee shop I’ve started going to. I ran into him downtown and we went to dinner and— ”

“You went to _dinner_?”

“Yes.”

“Like a date.”

“No.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. He had even stopped eating.

“I don’t know,” Loki corrected. “It— we went to dinner, and we talked for hours, and he walked me home. He’s funny, in a basic way. He didn’t try to kiss me at the end of the night. He didn’t try anything. I don’t even have his number.” This dawned on him only now, as he was saying it. He had essentially no way of contacting Thor, if he wanted to. He didn’t have his Facebook, or his Twitter, or his Instagram. He didn’t even know his last name. “We just see each other sometimes, and it’s— I mean, he’s made it clear he’s attracted to me.”

“That’s wild,” Bucky was saying. “That’s a real out-of-this-century kind of relationship.”

“It’s not a relationship.”

“I meant that in its most basic definition. So that’s the problem— you don’t know what he wants?”

“I think the problem is that I don’t know what I want,” Loki said, and it was honest. It was as open as he would ever be. 

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked.

There was a long pause. “It would be nice,” Loki finally said. “But it does seem like it’s too good to be true.”

“Shit, is he _that_ hot?”

“He’s… just fine,” Loki said. Which meant, Bucky knew, yes. 

“Look, honestly, what do you have to lose?”

“People always say that.”

“But it’s true, Loki. You want to try to scare yourself out of having a meaningful connection with someone, because that’s what you’re used to. Or because it’s easier. Or because you can only have complete control of a situation if you’re the only one in it. And that’s fine— I guess those are understandable, human hang-ups. But you know there’s always an emergency exit, right? Having a relationship with someone and seeing where it goes does not mean chaining them to your wrist for the rest of your life. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing all the time— you can just try to enjoy your life, too.” 

“I see,” Loki said. Which meant, you’re not wrong and I will take your words under consideration but I’ll walk into traffic before I admit you’re right to your face. “Very well.” 

Some time passed. After a moment, when he could have hung up, Loki said: “I don’t want you to think I only want you around when I need something.”

“I don’t think that,” Bucky said.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But you should know that just because you don’t need company the way you need to eat or sleep doesn’t mean you can’t _have_ it once in a while.” 

Loki almost said, _I know that_ , but he could see where sometimes it didn’t seem as though he did. “Yes,” he said instead. “Thank you, Bucky.” 

“Uh huh. Any time.” 

7

It was good advice. That didn’t mean Loki took it.

He went about his days in near-monotony, taking his walks and filling out applications, not hearing back from anyone, when suddenly he got two— three— four interview requests in one afternoon. He had begun, like all desperate people do, to apply to positions he had no background in, things like content creator, and marketing manager, and ESL tutor. He told himself that even if he started back at entry level, even if he took a massive pay cut, it would be better than asking Stark for a reference, to stooping so low. Of course, if he had swallowed his pride and made the request, he could land any Project Management position in the city. Stark Industries had far too many employees to be impressive plastered onto a resume, but a personal reference from Tony Stark himself was like a golden ticket. 

However it was the principle of the thing— feeling _slighted_ — that kept him strong. Strong like a very stubborn, bratty child. 

One interview caught his eye, on a whim. It was ridiculous. It was a taste tester for a popular food magazine; one of those jobs that didn’t seem like it should be a _job_ , something people _paid_ you for. Going around different cities and sampling restaurants. All he would have to do, at the end of the day, was be critical, and write thoughtfully, and engage an audience of people who called themselves something really terrible, like “foodies.” He could do it. In fact, he almost wanted to do it. If he was going to maintain a career where people didn’t necessarily like him, but wanted his approval nevertheless, he might as well also be fed well for it.

The actual interview went well enough and Loki let himself celebrate with a glass of wine at a little bar he liked downtown. He sat at the bar and forced himself to text Bucky about it— to tell him something good had finally happened. He was mid-way into explaining exactly _why_ the term “foodie” was so egregious and wrong when he felt the air shift around him, the suffocating bodily acknowledgement that another entity had just entered his personal space. 

“I thought I recognized the back of your head,” she said. He looked up. It was Sif. 

To his surprise, seeing her made him smile. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi!” she said, and seemed genuinely pleased to see him as well. “So funny to see you all the way in SoHo. Were you visiting Thor?”

Loki’s expression darkened. “No. Why would I do that.”

“Oh, well he said you two had a nice date the other night.”

So that question was answered. 

“It was fine,” Loki said.

“He said you’d probably think that.”

Loki frowned. “I had an interview,” he said.

“Nice!” Sif said. “What was it for? Wait— no, that’s bad luck. Don’t tell me anything else about it, I don’t want to know. Actually— I do want to know, I’m not a monster. But don’t tell me anyway.” She smiled as she talked and Loki noticed for the first time how pretty she was without the stern, clear work-intensity in her eyes or the tight braid she always wore or the apron, covered in chocolate sauce and pastry filling. Loki wondered if this was how people saw him, too, if the focus in his expression was distancing. He had liked Sif the moment he had met her, but she had not had a particularly _welcoming_ aura about her. Now, with her hair down and her manner relaxed, easy-going, she came off as someone anyone would want to be around. 

“I’ll tell you when I’m hired,” he said, with a small smile. 

“That’s a deal.”

“Is the shop closed today?”

“Oh, no, but Val said I was getting crazy so she forced me to take a day off.” 

“You seem like someone who over-works themselves,” Loki said sincerely.

“So do you,” Sif said. 

“That’s. It’s not _not_ true.”

The bartender poured her a pint and she raised it toward him. “To being fucking crazy, then.”

Loki laughed. He raised his glass as well, and they clinked. It was the easiest friend he’d made since Bucky. 

They talked for two hours. Sif, Loki found out, was intelligent, and charming, and a complete disaster. She spilled half her pint on herself while trying to reenact a video she’d seen on Twitter. She snorted when she laughed too hard, and talked loudly and animatedly about everything that came to mind. She was well-read— “Val and I’ve been talking about starting a lesbian book club for years, but we don’t want to be _that_ much of a walking cliche.”— and she liked classical art— “None of that Pollock-de Kooning stuff Thor likes to get high and look at on the weekends; give me a Michaelangelo any day. Though I do think Marina Abramović is cool.”— and Loki got the impression that her excitement, her passion, and her very obvious joy were all genuine, from the heart, and unfiltered. It made him happy, he realized, to talk to her. In a way it was like talking to Thor, but without any of the intense pressure or the sexual tension. 

“Fuck!” Sif said finally, downing her second pint. “I’ve got to run— I promised my brother I’d meet him. In Bushwick. Thirty minutes ago.” She grinned, sheepishly, running a hand through her hair. “But this has been really nice, Loki. A bunch of us are going out tonight, dinner maybe, drinks definitely. You should come with.”

“Here,” she said, taking out her phone before he even had a chance to open his mouth, to politely refuse the invitation. “Let me get your number.”

Loki typed it in before he could change his mind, then handed her phone back to her. She called him immediately. “Now you have mine,” she said with a smile. And then she did something truly insane; she stood up, leaned over, and gave him a quick, tight hug. “I’ll see you tonight!” she said, and walked out. 

“Okay,” Loki said to himself, slightly dizzy, minutes after she had already left. He ordered another glass of wine. 

*

Obviously, he was not going to go. He didn’t know these people; it was a Thursday night; Thor would be there; he had nothing to wear; and most importantly, he didn’t want to go. He did _not_ want to go. Going out was for people who didn’t have couches, Loki told himself, manically, standing in front of the mirror and brushing his hair. Going out was for people who didn’t have couches, clearly, because otherwise they would be sitting at home enjoying the expensive couches they had bought. Who went out, anymore, in this economy? People like Thor, Loki thought. Which was so obvious— should have dawned on him ages ago— Thor was a person without a couch. That made him feel so much better. He wouldn’t go. There would be something incredibly satisfying to watch on TV, like House Hunters or reruns of Friends. 

He put his jacket on, because it was only the beginning of June, and he got cold easily, and left his apartment.

“Dinner and drinks” turned out to be “just drinks, with some haphazardly thrown in appetizers, like a potato skin platter.” Immediate regret. Sif caught Loki’s eye first from across the bar and waved him over to a little table where he recognized Val among three men of various sizes and body art. 

“Hi,” he said. He smiled at Sif. It was awkward; it hurt his face, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Hey!” she said. “You came!” And then, to the rest of the table: “This is Loki.”

In perfect unison, and in unprecedented excitement, all three men shouted: “ _Loki!_ ” As if he were a person they had known since childhood, and had tragically lost at sea somewhere, and who had finally returned to them after all of these years. Before Loki could even _begin_ to process this, something even worse happened. A hand clapped him on the back, hard, and when he turned toward it he was greeted with Thor’s awful, blinding smile. He was wearing real clothing, for once. This did not help matters at all.

“Hi,” Thor said, and it was quiet, intimate, somehow meant only for Loki to hear. It was unnecessary, to say it like that. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Neither did I.”

“Let’s get you a drink.”

_Say no_ , Loki thought. “Please,” Loki said. 

As they weaved their way to the bar, Loki realized he hadn’t learned what anybody’s name was. He was not, despite what anyone may have thought, trying to be rude, ever; it was only that Thor was the most distracting person he had ever had the displeasure of knowing. It was more than that. Thor was more than that— something unpleasant, something that ate stars. A black hole in the middle of the city, taking things, demanding attention. Loki didn’t know what to do with a man like that. How to be near him, to function under his gaze. Loki wasn’t even sure Thor was aware of it; if it was something you could be aware of and still leave the house, retain humility. 

“Are those all your friends?” he asked, taking a seat at the bar. 

“Yeah,” Thor said, glancing over at the table. “From left to right: Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. They work with me.” 

“At the tattoo shop.”

“Yeah,” Thor said, and he sounded proud. “They do great work. What are you having?”

“Maker’s,” Loki said. “Neat.” 

He let Thor order for him and surveyed the place, a Bavarian-style Biergarten that seemed fitting, at least for Thor and Sif. He could only assume the others were similar sorts of characters. Loki should have felt out of place and uncomfortable, but after a moment of reflection he realized he didn’t at all. Sif was a friendly enough face, and even if the others thought he was cold and boring, Thor would inevitably take up most of their attention. Maybe he could slip by, predominantly unnoticed, close enough to Thor that it did not matter whether anyone else looked at him or not. 

He was better than this, he knew. But just because it was an unbecoming and demeaning thought did not mean he didn’t feel it. There had to be, Loki thought, a way of stopping whatever this was that was happening to him. When he looked back at Thor he was laughing with the bartender. Who did that? Who just made friends like that? He felt like a schoolgirl. He should have never come.

“You look like you’re having some type of internal crisis,” Thor said, bringing him back to earth.

“Excuse me?”

“Your face,” Thor said. “It looks more concerned than usual.”

“Will you stop making comments on my face?”

“Why? It’s so pretty.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “You really think you’re charming,” he said, turning toward his drink. It came out meaner than intended. 

“Is it too much? Am I trying too hard?”

“What do you have to try for,” Loki stated. He shot his glass back without entirely meaning to, grimacing as the whole drink went down.

“Ooh,” Thor said, wrinkling his nose but still managing to look somewhat impressed. “Have I driven you to drink?”

“No,” Loki said. “This is normal. I’ll have another.”

“This is normal?” A pause. “Not that I’m judging.”

“You invited me to a _bar_.”

“Sif,” Thor corrected. “Sif invited you to a bar.”

“You told her we went on a date.” 

“Yeah,” Thor said. He at least had the decency to look sheepish. “Wishful thinking.”

“ _Why_?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why do you want to— ” Loki gestured vaguely, hoping it was enough. “Do this so badly?”

Thor raised an eyebrow. Clearly, it was not enough.

“I don’t understand your interest in me,” Loki said with a sigh.

“I didn’t really take you for the self-deprecating type.”

“You clearly don’t know me at all.”

“Then let me,” Thor said. “I know it’s… not really the norm these days. People meet on dating sites or through friends. But what’s so strange about wanting to get to know each other?”

Loki frowned.

“I thought I could stop thinking about you,” Thor said. “But I can’t. I’m being honest. We don’t have to jump into anything, I just feel like there could be something there. Don’t you?”

“I don’t really date,” Loki said. It was clear to both of them that he was avoiding the question. 

“Look, if I really thought you weren’t interested, you know I would have backed off by now, right?”

Ordering another drink bought him some time to think. He hadn’t eaten since before his interview, stupidly, he realized. 

“You won’t like me,” he said finally, leaving cash on the check, “once you get to know me.” 

“Who fucking made you think that?”

Loki shrugged. It was simpler not to have to explain. “Fine. I suppose. Have it your way.”

“I tend to,” Thor answered, mirroring his shrug. He was so at ease with himself; it made Loki envy him. There were many aspects to Thor another man could covet— his height and his looks and his effect on a room— but it was his confidence that felt the most foreign to Loki. That wasn’t to say that Loki didn’t have _any_ ; he knew perfectly well there were things he excelled at, that he was smarter than most people, that he could spin the truth to his advantage under most— if not any— circumstances. But there was an outward face Loki had cultivated over time. It was sewn together painstakingly, and smoothed over so the stitches didn’t show. It was a presentation of a man who made decisions carefully and never asked for help, spine-straight, analytical, pragmatic. It was important to Loki to project this man on top of an image of himself, because this man never let his emotions get the better of him. Loki had learned very early on that his feelings made him a liability, something easily discarded, or traded in. 

His family had helped. It was easy to want to be someone else under the cruel, unloving eye of his father; it was obvious to want to be someone who did not need a father. Loki thought that, if he could replace all of the heartache he felt with cunning and objectivity, if he could turn his heart into a fist, he would never let anyone hurt him again. 

It was easy, if he didn’t think about it. 

If he didn’t consider all the things he could possibly be missing out on, building walls first out of clay then stone, a moat around his soul, filling it with insatiable beasts. If he woke up and didn’t think. If he went to work and didn’t think. If he didn’t think. 

And now, just when he felt he had complete mastery over the art of not giving a fuck (or appearing not to), came a man reminiscent of golden statues and ancient gods. It was hard not to hate him for it, a little. Loki tried to muster that up now— some sort of hatred— but his own betrayal of himself was great. 

They walked back to the table together. Loki had expected Thor to get handsier as the night went on, but he only kept a palm lightly on Loki’s knee, paying him and his friends equal parts attention. Loki found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed the conversation, the lightheartedness of their talk, Thor filling in details the others left out in their familiarity of one another. Val outdrank them all, challenged Fandral to an arm wrestle, and won $50. Sif knocked over a pitcher, which Loki now knew was possible even if she hadn’t been drinking. Volstagg shocked him most of all by taking out his wallet and leaning in close, displaying polaroid after polaroid of tiny, redheaded, Volstagg-shaped children. Even over the general bar noise, the pride in his voice was apparent. Loki looked at this large, boisterous, cheerful man and saw him differently after that. By the end of the night, he begrudgingly liked them all.

Thor walked him home again, at the end of the night. Loki only realized how tipsy he was when he had to lean on him for support. 

“I’m not inviting you in,” he said, blearily, as they exited the subway. “So you can get that idea out of your head now.”

Thor just laughed.

“Tell me about yourself,” Loki continued. “So the dizziness will stop.” 

“Well, I— ”

“I need grilled cheese,” Loki interrupted. “I’m sure what you were about to say was really interesting, but not nearly as important as melted gruyere.” 

“You picked the wrong neighborhood to live in for 2am junk food,” Thor said with a laugh. 

“I know. It’s the greatest tragedy of my life.”

“Really? The greatest?”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Loki said, very seriously. He said this with all the gravity of the very drunk, as though it were a deep secret of the world he was generously letting Thor in on. “My life is incredibly tragic. But this is… I mean. Have you ever _had_ a grilled cheese?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know.” 

“I guess I do,” Thor said. He was clearly amused— maybe even a little endeared— but Loki was far too focused on picking his feet up and then put them back on the ground in a forward motion to notice. 

When they got to his apartment, Loki dropped his keys. He waited until Thor picked them up for him.

“Thanks,” he said. Thor opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything— “Do you want to come in?”

Thor gave him an apologetic sort of smile. “I have an early morning tomorrow.” 

Loki frowned. He waved his hand in some kind of response, a goodbye, and then he walked up into his apartment, unlocked it, and left the door wide open.

8

Thor stepped inside, shutting the door behind him, locking it. He felt tired, not from the situation but from the day, client after client changing their mind about something or another, uncertain of their idea, of the permanence of a tattoo, then staying out too late, like he was back in college. Loki had kicked off his shoes haphazardly; he was rummaging around the kitchen cupboards and Thor took a mental picture of him there, some of that carefully-maintained composure dropped, his hair pulled back and tied in a loose bun, looking younger and more playful than Thor had ever seen him.

He turned to Thor then, as if noticing him for the first time. “I thought you weren’t coming in. You said.”

“You left the door open.”

“I did?” Loki frowned. “It’s closed now.”

“I closed it.” 

“Mm,” Loki said, a non-committal sound, already clearly uninterested in this conversation. He went to the fridge, staring at it for minutes as Thor stood awkwardly in the foyer. When he turned back toward Thor he looked so sad, so utterly hopeless, that anyone looking at him would think he’d just been diagnosed with something terminal.

“No gruyere,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen, disappearing down a hall. 

Thor watched this happen, somewhat at a loss, before quietly taking off his shoes as well. He shut the fridge, which had been left open, noting that Loki apparently had a habit of doing that while drunk. He found a glass and poured some water into it and set it aside. He found some bread and butter and enough cheddar to do the trick, then got to working. The initial discomfort aside, Thor was surprised at how easy it was for him to feel at home here, in this stranger’s kitchen, in the middle of the night. He could not tell whether Loki felt a similar kind of familiarity with him too, to let him in at this hour and leave him to his own business— to go sleep or puke, presumably— or whether he was just a reckless drunk. Thor hoped it wasn’t the latter, but he _had_ watched the man leave his front door wide open mere moments ago. 

The apartment’s set-up was intuitive enough. When he was finished, he found a tray, put the grilled cheese and glass of water on it, found some painkillers for the inevitable headache, and brought them to Loki’s room, where— unsurprisingly— Loki was already asleep.

Thor set the tray down, decided it would be a massive invasion of privacy to try to get Loki into some kind of pajama situation, and settled for throwing a blanket over him instead. He shifted Loki to his side, dragged the small bathroom trash can to the floor by his head, and left only the water and ibuprofen on the nightstand. By the time he was finished cleaning up the kitchen, it was already 3 in the morning, and he had only gone back to Loki’s room to make sure he hadn’t choked or died in his sleep. As he was turning off the light, Loki stirred, and sat up.

“Hey,” he said, and there was somehow something both accusatory and soft in his tone.

“Hi,” Thor replied. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I was… leaving?”

Loki frowned. He tossed the covers off of him and looked down at his body and seemed genuinely horrified that he was in bed, wearing jeans. He looked back up at Thor, eyes narrowed. “You can sleep on the couch, but I _will_ be locking my door.” 

“You didn’t even close your door, buddy.”

“That’s none of your business,” Loki sniffed. 

Thor threw his hands up. He walked out of the room. He turned the rest of the lights off, and finally fell asleep on the couch. 

The dream was different. The atmosphere was different. Still, he walked the dark hall flickering with candlelight. Still, his legs carried him forward to a place he could not name. But there was no great absence in the pit of him this time, and his hands fell lightly at his sides rather than pressing into his abdomen, trying to keep the wet ache at bay. His body moved with confidence; it did not hitch or stumble or burn. The feeling, the world around him then, was fine. Thor knew that wherever he was— although he could not remember the exact name of it or what it meant to him or what he was doing there— was exactly where he needed to be. _I’m worthy_ , he thought, the words coming to him unprompted. 

If he could just take a moment, rest a hand against the stone wall and think, he knew he could remember it all— what it was he was to remember. The truth sat idly at the tip of his tongue, then circled away from him like a key with wings, rushing back into the dark. Still. Thor was aware of the change, and appreciative of it: to dream without fear or anxiety, to know that whatever was waiting for him on the other side of this haze was clear and bright.

That was the other difference. In this dream, he reached the end of the corridor, where the light was seeping through. The door he met was taller than him, and wider, made out of dark wood and latched in iron. He knew it wasn’t locked; he knew he only had to push it to understand. He pressed his hand against it, and the cheers blinded him.

When he woke the next morning, the apartment was still quiet, which either meant Loki was still asleep, or he was waiting in his room for Thor to leave. Thor guessed the former, and put on a pot of coffee. It didn’t feel right to _look through_ Loki’s things, but he couldn’t help but take note of how straight-forward and clean the rooms were, the minimal decor, how unlived-in it felt. It was luxurious, of course— Thor guessed the couch he spent the night on cost more than a month’s worth of rent— but it also felt like a space in which no one ever laughed. It made him sad. 

He considered, briefly, making them breakfast, but wasn’t sure how kindly Loki would take to him wasting more of his food. It wasn’t like he ever got his grilled cheese. He settled on looking through Loki’s Blu-ray collection and ignoring his growling stomach while waiting for the coffee. 

“It’s rude to snoop,” he eventually heard a voice behind him. Thor looked up; he couldn’t help but smile. Loki had walked out wearing a long, fluffy robe, hair a mess, the satin eye mask still sitting on top of his forehead. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded hungover. “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah, I kinda helped myself.”

“I see.”

“You look like you need it.”

Loki gave him a wry smile. “And whose fault is that?”

“Your own. Where did I say ‘drink five glasses of whiskey’?”

“Was it five?”

“Yeah,” Thor laughed. “Do you remember much?”

Loki paused long enough to get a mug from the cabinet, and pour himself a cup of coffee. He hesitated, and got one for Thor as well. “How do you like it?”

“Just black, thanks.”

Loki made a face, setting the mug down on the kitchen bar and then piling sugar and creamer into his own. 

“You don’t really strike me as the type to love Monty Python this much,” Thor said, lifting up three DVDs. He got up and took his coffee, sliding into the stool across from Loki. 

Loki smiled, faintly. “My mother loved them. They’re one of the few memories I still have of her.”

“Oh,” Thor said, not wanting to press the issue, but curious anyway, the way he was curious about every single aspect of Loki’s life.

“She died when I was little,” Loki said. He sipped at his coffee with both hands, thin fingers wrapped around the mug. 

“I’m sorry.”

A shrug. “It was a very long time ago.” 

“Were you close?”

“As close as a seven year old can be to his mother.”

“So… really close.”

Loki smiled again, the same smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose I owe you thanks.” 

“For what?”

He waved his hand in response, as non-committal and vague as the gesture he had made the night before, as if to say— _come in, leave, goodnight or not, whatever_. As if things that mattered didn’t really matter. Thor wondered what it was that forced him to act so nonchalant. He poured more creamer into his coffee— which was now more creamer than coffee— and stepped on the trash can to toss it. He frowned.

“Is this a grilled cheese?”

“Yeah— I made it last night but you were asleep by the time I got to you.”

Loki kept frowning, looking into his trash, something unreadable in his expression. 

“Should I not have? Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Loki said, smoothly, snapping it shut. “I thought you had an early morning.”

“So you do remember.”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

“Are you asking me to leave?” Thor asked. For the first time since they’d met, Loki could sense some type of trepidation in his tone. “You don’t have to be polite about it; I know I kind of just crashed.” 

“I’m not being polite,” Loki answered. He seemed, finally, to make up his mind about something. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Fuck,” Thor said, “yes.” 

“There’s a diner I like,” Loki said. “It’s maybe fifteen minutes away.” 

“Lead the way,” Thor said, getting up. This time, when Loki smiled, it seemed like he meant it. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just to be clear,” he said, after a moment, “this is a date.”
> 
> “Oh?” Loki asked, his tone light. “I thought it was a tattoo consultation.” 

9

“What time do you have to go in?” Loki asked, considering the breakfast sandwich in front of him. 

“I make my own hours,” Thor said. “One of those perks of being a boss.”

“But surely you have clients with appointments,” Loki said. “Surely this isn’t a haphazard, thrown-together-at-the-last-minute establishment.”

“Are you talking about walk-ins? Because those are actually pretty common.”

Loki tested an unlabeled bottle of hot sauce by squeezing a drop onto his finger and licking it. Thor very carefully did not watch.

“I have someone coming in at 2,” Thor continued when Loki didn’t respond. “Plenty of time to sit here and ask you invasive questions for the next few hours.”

Loki snorted at that. “What makes you think I’ll answer your invasive questions?”

“It gives you the opportunity to ask me some in return.”

“I don’t need to ask you anything to guess what kind of degenerate nightmare you are.”

“ _Whoaaa_ ,” Thor said with a laugh. “That is some accusation.” 

“I know your type,” Loki replied. He wasn’t looking at Thor at all. He was squeezing another drop from another bottle onto his finger, and licking it, slowly enough to make something in Thor's brain twitch. 

“What,” Thor began, clearing his throat, “is my type?”

“Certainly not someone I could take home to meet the parents.” He chose the ketchup next, although it was perfectly clear that it was ketchup, that there was no reason to test it out because it was very obviously just _ketchup_ , which everyone had had before. He squeezed a single drop on his finger, and licked it. Thor could see the pink of his tongue. 

“I,” Thor said, putting his elbows on the table, his hands in his hair, “don’t even fucking remember what you just said.” 

Loki looked at him finally, smiling. With teeth. “Why is that?”

“You’re doing it on purpose.”

“Doing what?” Innocently. 

Thor scowled and took a long sip of his coffee. It was shitty, diner-grade coffee. He had begun to suspect that this wasn’t Loki’s favorite diner at all, that Loki didn’t even _like_ diners, that he had just brought him here so Thor could watch him lick dime-sized foods off of himself. Thor looked at his own plate, which was covered in the most standard looking eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, a side of pancakes, a side of extra bacon, and sausages he had ever seen. There was no way this was a diner Loki liked. There was no way there was anything special about it— he might have never even stepped foot in it before this morning. 

“Maybe we can go for ice cream next,” Loki said, casually. 

“Fuck you,” Thor said, without any heat. 

Loki met his eyes. He didn’t have to say anything this time; he just smiled the same, wicked smile. 

“Shouldn’t you be more hungover than this?”

“I’ve caught my second wind.” 

“This isn’t the time for that. Mope into your coffee like a normal man.”

Loki laughed. “I don’t mope.” 

“I feel like maybe you do,” Thor said, lightly, enjoying the mood of the morning, the sunlight streaming in and hitting Loki’s hair, his cheekbones, his mouth. “I get the feeling that you’re a little dramatic.”

Loki’s eyes widened; he managed to look truly affronted. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Sincerely, like delivering bad news to a patient.

Loki laughed again. It was more than he ever had in front of Thor; it was almost becoming comfortable. If Loki had been superstitious, he might have crossed his fingers or said a small prayer that this feeling would last. He wasn’t, however, and more often than he cared to admit he faced that fact with a semblance of regret. It would have been nice, growing up, and then being grown up, to have something to cling to in times of anger or depression— as well as in moments of gratitude. A focal point where all of his hopes could meet. Loki felt that it was a bleak world, all in all, that they lived in. He wondered if his feelings would change if he truly believed there was someone on another realm pulling the strings. 

Looking at Thor now, still in his clothes from the night before, the bags of a night spent on the couch under his eyes, he could almost understand why people believed in god. To go home, and put his palms together, and say _please let this work out_ , and place that plea in the hands of someone stronger than you. 

Of course, it would not be the end of the world. If it did not work out. If Thor turned out to be an asshole. If he decided, inevitably, that Loki was too much of a hassle— too difficult to know— too honest at times and at others not at all. It would not be the end of the world, because Loki had had a difficult life as it were, and he was at the point where not much, let alone some man he met four weeks ago, could break his heart anymore. But it would hurt, because Thor had walked him home at the end of the night, and because he smiled at him even when they weren’t alone, and because Loki had already let him inside of his home, and that was more than he’d done for anyone in years. 

“I’ve got to go,” Thor said, too soon. It was almost 1:30. “Let’s grab the bill, and— ”

“I’ll get it. Don’t be late for work.”

“No, let’s just split it.” He was looking around for the waitress, to catch her eye.

“Stop,” Loki said. “You made sure I wasn’t robbed last night. Let me at least get this.” 

“Okay,” Thor said, and he stood up. For a moment, they both thought something might happen. “Bye then.” He left. Loki held his breath until he saw him walk out the door.

When he went home, after two more cups of coffee and a long time of sitting in silence, alone, finally letting himself feel the full weight of his hangover headache, Loki opened the trash can again, like someone with some sort of idiocy illness, and looked at the grilled cheese sitting in it. He tried to remember the last time someone had cooked for him, and bracing his hands on the kitchen bar, jaw tight, he realized he couldn’t. 

10

“Pietro!” Thor said, jogging into his station, slapping the kid on the shoulder. “Sorry I’m late, man. Have you been here a while?”

“No,” Pietro said, and to Thor’s relief he didn’t look the least bit agitated. “Not really. It’s cool. I was in the neighborhood, anyway.”

“Uh, you’re here to finish up the snake, right?” 

“Right, right,” Pietro said, nodding. “That’s what I meant.” 

Thor had to hand it to him. He was weird. He was so weird it was almost off-putting, to find someone _still so weird_ in New York City, considering that weird was sort of the norm, and no one ever bat an eye at anyone else’s weirdness anymore. Pietro, though, was the kind of person who bought tickets to e-sports matches at Hammerstein Ballroom and probably thought bird watching was cool. He was fidgeting already, with the zipper of his light blue tracksuit. Who outside of Brighton Beach even wore tracksuits unironically anymore? Pietro Maximoff, clearly. 

He yanked the sleeve up to reveal his forearm, where the piece they’d been working on had healed nicely.

“Looks good,” Thor said with a nod. “It shouldn’t take too long today. Don’t let me forget about the discount, alright?”

“Hey, yeah, cool,” Pietro said, followed by a string of similar affirmations which Thor did not bother listening to. He set up, and Pietro sat down, and immediately began shaking his knee up and down. 

Thor sighed. “Is it a condition? Do you think we can find a medical professional who can deal with this?”

“No, no, no,” Pietro said, waving it off. “It’s cool. I’m totally fine.” He stilled his leg. “See? We can start.”

Thor withheld his second sigh, and focused on transferring the stencil onto his forearm, fitting it neatly around the dagger that had already healed. He poured out his ink, turned on his gun, and began again. 

This time, the pain felt like his skull had been plunged into ice. It was shocking and unimaginable. He took a ragged, stuttering breath and closed his eyes for just a moment, praying Pietro didn’t notice whatever it was that was happening to him. Exhaling, he tried to steady himself and focus on the work in front of him. There was no way he could stop this for a second time— what was it about this kid? What was happening to him? Thor knew it was just a massively insane coincidence, that it had nothing to do with Pietro or the snake or the placement of the gun, that he had just happened to develop a tattoo-induced brain tumor and it was time to accept that the last words out of his mouth before he died would be something like “you’re fidgeting” or “you’re shaking the chair” or “what the fuck kind of drugs do you do kid because at this point I kinda want some myself.”

When he caught Pietro’s eye, he forced a smile. It was a thousand tiny bee stings going off at once, stunning his brain. He got through the curve of the snake’s head through sheer will alone. He barely even noticed Pietro’s legs bouncing up and down.

Luckily, the tattoo was small, the size between Thor’s thumb and index finger if he spread them out. It took him half an hour to finish the line work and start and finish the shading. It was excruciating— every second felt like sirens, like war, like medieval torture devices— but he finished, and it was over, and there was just the payment standing between him and crumbling into the fetal position into the backroom to cry. 

“Holy shit!” Pietro was saying, admiring his arm in the mirror. “It looks so cool! I almost want to pay you the full price.”

Thor forced another, tight-lipped smile. “Next time,” he said. “This time, it’s $100.” 

Pietro beamed. He was so young and so stupid that it was impossible not to develop a fondness for him. “I hope your sister likes it,” Thor said. 

“I know she will,” Pietro said, confidently. “We’re twins.”

When he finally left, Thor collapsed back into his chair. He didn’t have the energy to take an Advil or get himself on the subway. When Heimdall came by to check on him, he didn’t have the energy to speak with him either, just waved him off with a hand, barely looking up at him. It hurt him to use his arms. It hurt him to look at the walls. He pulled his hair out of it’s loose pony and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. What was it, about the kid? Thor had read somewhere that some memories were so heavy and terrible that the brain repressed them completely, like willing them out of existence. They never became truly non-existent, though, not really. It was more like the brain hammering them down, thinner and thinner, a sheet you could look through but for its diamond hardness. The memory would sit there then, in its cold prison, until something eventually brought it back up. A drowned body surfacing, and gasping back to life. Thor wondered if this is what it felt like; he wondered if what he was experiencing was some kind of callback, a film of jagged, unforgiving ice demanding him to look at it again. 

Were there memories that bad in his past? Was it something Odin could possibly be aware of, and did he have anything to do with them? 

Thor didn’t know where to start, how to look. He didn’t even know if this thing that was happening to his brain was memory at all— or why he would consider the possibility in the first place. 

He took a breath and forced himself to get up. The pain, like the first time, was just a dull, throbbing ache now. It felt like a heartbeat dying. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answer to its question. 

“I’ve gotta go,” he said to Heimdall, as tonelessly as possible.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Heimdall raised an eyebrow. He looked at Thor with some concern.

“That’s just it,” Thor said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I keep— I’ve been having a weird time lately. Weird dreams, weird sleep patterns. I get these terrible headaches every time I see that kid.”

“The kid that was just in here?”

“Pietro Maximoff, yeah.”

Heimdall frowned. “Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

“I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“What do you need?”

It was a simple enough question; anyone could have asked it. Heimdall had asked it, however, and Thor knew that meant whatever he answered with, Heimdall would find a way to make happen. It could be ludicrous. It could be a twisted, unattainable response. Heimdall would make it attainable, because beyond even love, the trust that lived between them was an expansive, vicious thing, and it would knock down walls if it had to. It would rearrange the laws of time and gravity. 

“I don’t need anything,” Thor said, “thank you. I’m just going to go home for the night and lay down. Order some take-out, watch a dumb movie.”

“You know that _I_ know that when you say ‘dumb movie,’ you mean _The Fast and The Furious_ , right?”

Thor crossed his arms.

“And you know those aren’t actually dumb movies, right?”

“Goodnight, Heimdall,” Thor said, even though it was barely past 3pm. 

“Goodnight, Thor.” 

When he got to his apartment, the delivery man was getting out of his car, strolling up the steps. Heimdall had arranged it, of course; it was nearly enough to get rid of his headache entirely. Thor smiled. He fired off a text to Heimdall that was just heart emojis, got in through the door, and promptly collapsed on the couch.

Like most sane people, Thor felt there was nothing worse than a nap. Nothing. No matter how well you slept for those 20 minutes to 3 hours, you woke up disheveled, exhausted, and disoriented. Dry mouth, head empty, no thoughts. Stupid, even. (Stupider than usual, for some.) If you _accidentally_ napped on a couch, if it was a completely unintentional incident, and you happened to be an aggressive sleeper, you were completely fucked. More often than not you wound up on the floor, nose crushed into the carpet, dazed, alone, frightened. Why were you so thirsty? Why were all the lights left on? It was just best never to nap, to save yourself the personal humiliation and body pains. 

Obviously, Thor had surprise-napped. It was a surprise when it happened, and it was a surprise when he woke up to the sound of his phone ringing, his knees aching from sleeping like a goddamn child— was he getting old? Did anyone under the age of eighty actually hurt themselves by sleeping? He should never have napped. He should have been strong. Thor scrambled for his phone and squinted up to see who was calling and dropped it on his face.

“Ungh,” he answered.

“Come again?” It was Heimdall. 

“I think my lip’s bleeding.”

“Did you drop your phone on your face?”

“Yeah.”

“Idiot.” Heimdall laughed. Heimdall only seemed to laugh at Thor’s misfortunes; he made a mental note to mention this to his therapist. “Someone came in asking for you.”

Thor sat up, rubbing his mouth. “And?”

“I didn’t get his name, but he looked like the kind of person who would be asking for you.” 

“Elaborate.”

“You know, weirdly attractive but with the attitude of a debt collector.” 

“Christ,” Thor said. “That’s so accurate. It makes me feel kind of weird.”

“So you know this person.”

“I can take a guess.” A pause. Thor realized he was smiling. “What did he say?”

“He left his number. He said you hadn’t asked for it yet because you’d been dropped on your head as a baby.”

“I never told him that,” Thor laughed.

“You never need to. It’s very obvious.”

Thor laughed again. “Can you text it to me? My hands aren’t working yet.”

“You worry me.”

“It’s fine,” Thor said, which was never reassuring coming out of his mouth. “Everything is fine.”

“I’ll text you,” Heimdall said, and hung up. 

Two minutes later, Thor texted Loki.

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** hey! wyd

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** Is that supposed to mean something?

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** lol

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** what are you doing

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** Where is the a?

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** “wayd” looks weird

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** Yes, you’re right, the way you have it is completely normal.

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** ok ok. what’s up? did you need a tattoo consult?

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** No. 

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** wanna come over?

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** For what reason?

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
**...

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** No.

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** it was worth a try

**Text message from 212-616-2001  
** you really went all the way downtown huh

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** Shut up.

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** 😊

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** You’ve already made me regret it.

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** i’m sorry! i’ll make it up to you

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** over dinner

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** sunday? 

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** Fine.

Thor ran his tongue across his lip, which had finally stopped bleeding. He decided the blood had been worth it, anyway. 

11

The day was bleak: grey and damp. It was neither raining too hard nor lightly enough to forgo an umbrella, but the chill was the kind to nestle into your bones, take root there, and build a home. Loki spent the morning with the Times Crossword and a kettle full of tea, by the window, wishing for the thirtieth time this month he had a cat, if only just to sit at his feet and look into his eyes with secret cat knowledge. 

Absurdly, he was nervous. He found his mind wandering, then obsessively returning back to the night ahead of him. Why? They had had dinner together before. They had had drinks— they had even had a sleepover, despite whatever did or did not happen during it. There was no basis for his anxiety apart from the poor weather and the fact that he hadn’t gone on a date that mattered in over five years. And although Loki had enough self awareness to know that he was attractive, and intelligent, and worthwhile, the little voice living in the back of his head was always conscious enough to remind him that nothing he loved would ever love him back completely. 

The day passed like a month. The rain condescended him in all its ambivalence, its slight humidity just enough to irritate his hair and his mood. His phone buzzed.

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** i know we said 7 but i can’t wait to see you

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** what if we say 5 instead

**Text message from Thor Odinson  
** just to take advantage of happy hour 

**Text message from Loki 🔥  
** I suppose it would be stupid not to, in this economy.

They surprised one another: Thor showing up with an umbrella and Loki throwing caution to the wind. His hair was already ruined; he had thrown it back into a messy bun. Standing in the light of the restaurant, under the awning outside with the rain casting glow onto his face, Thor thought Loki was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. How had this happened? Where would he have been, now, had Peanut Butter not slobbered all over this man’s shoe all those weeks ago? It hadn’t been too long, Thor knew that. But it felt different, somehow, not fated— Thor would never use the word “fated”— but meaningful regardless, like hearing about the Sistine Chapel all of your life and then finally going to see it. Like something falling into place; a place you did not even know existed. 

Loki smiled despite himself. He said hi. Strands of hair had come loose at the nape of his neck and Thor wanted to touch them, then his neck, then his mouth. 

Inside, the tables were small enough that their knees touched while they sat. After they ordered their wine and the waitress took their menus, Thor let his leg stretch just a little bit further, pressed just a little bit harder against Loki’s.

“Just to be clear,” he said, after a moment, “this is a date.”

“Oh?” Loki asked, his tone light. “I thought it was a tattoo consultation.” 

“Mm, I actually might not be doing a lot of those at the moment.”

“Why is that?”

Thor made a face, his nose all scrunched up. Loki didn’t think someone so devastating could also be cute. It felt wrong, somehow— too many of god’s good graces collecting in one human being. “It’s gonna sound weird,” Thor said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“The last kid I worked with kind of wore me out. I mean, he was a good kid, he was completely fine— but every time I went to tattoo him I felt sick.”

“Did he smell?”

“No, nothing like that. He was a totally normal dude. But I swear to god, every time the needle touched his body my head burst into flames.”

“Maybe you had an adverse reaction to his skin chemistry.”

“That’s a thing?” 

“I don’t know,” Loki said with a shrug, raising his wine to his lips. “What could it be, besides a coincidence?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was the tattoo?”

“It was a snake. Just a snake wrapped around a dagger. I’ve tattooed hundreds of snakes before— I mean, everyone has that tattoo.”

Loki looked amused. “I have that tattoo.”

“Wait— ” Thor felt something in his brain short-circuit. “You have a tattoo?”

“Mhm. Although it’s just a snake, it’s not necessarily wrapped _around_ anything.” A pause. “Technically.” 

“Where is it? Show me.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitched up. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Thor said. He drank. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Why would I be fucking with you?” Though he supposed that wasn’t an entirely fair question. Loki _did_ have a snake tattoo, and it _was_ in a highly-inappropriate-for-restaurant-viewing location, but he had multiple reasons to fuck with Thor, and he planned to exhaust them all for the foreseeable future, as long as Thor would let him. He smiled. 

Their appetizers came, Thor eyeing Loki carefully. “You know,” he said, “I’m not even that hungry. We can take this all to go...”

Loki laughed. The part of him that was genuinely enjoying this kind of attention seemed insistent to be at war with the part of him that hated himself and all of humanity, that reminded him this was all it was, one and done, the only thing Thor could really want. He took a breath and tried to look neutral, his gaze focused on the calamari in front of him.

“Is that all this is, then?” he asked, mildly.

“Huh?”

“You don’t have to wine and dine me if you only want to get into my pants. I’m an adult.”

“First of all, you should probably hold sex to a higher standard. Second of all… no. I mean,” Thor sighed here, taking some time to drink. He signaled to the waitress for more wine, if this was how the night was going to go. “I mean,” he continued, “you’re… stupidly hot. Like, it makes me feel stupid, how hot you are. But I also feel like— I don’t know. I want to know you.” He stopped again. “Did I totally misjudge this situation?”

“No,” Loki said, feeling a crater unhinge from where it was lodged in his belly. “I’d like to get to know you. Also. And, obviously, I think you’re— ” he stopped, feeling himself blush ever so slightly. “Adequate looking.” 

Thor laughed, throwing his head back. It was nice to see, even if it was marginally at his own expense. Loki, again, found himself smiling. 

“This _will_ kill me,” Thor said, “but we can take it slow if you want.” 

It was Loki’s turn to laugh. “Let’s see how the rest of the night goes first,” he said, stabbing at a calamari with his fork. “Are you really thinking of taking a break from tattooing?”

“I don’t know. I know how crazy it must sound to you; it’s kind of crazy to me. Maybe I’m just burned out and need a break.”

“Maybe,” Loki said. “Is there anything else you’d want to do?”

“I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I should have had a Plan B all this time.”

“I didn’t.”

“And how’d that work out for you?”

Loki chewed thoughtfully. “The first few days I was a nightmare. After I was laid off. It felt like going through a terrible breakup, only I had no say in the matter, and I couldn’t point to what I did wrong, or try to salvage the situation. It was completely one-sided. And it made me feel like… everything I’d done up to that point had been rendered worthless. But then,” he paused, taking a sip of his wine, “I realized I could do anything I wanted. I could start new. I could try something I’d been afraid to try before.”

“Like the job you interviewed for?” Thor made a face. “Sorry— Sif told me.”

“Like this,” Loki said, in a tone that said he was feeling shy about it, but wanted to be bold. “I don’t really date.”

“Why not?”

Loki shrugged. It felt too early for this.

“I mean,” Thor said. “It worked out for me so I’m not complaining.” 

Loki smiled. “I wonder how long you’ll feel that way for.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Thor said. His knee pressed harder against Loki’s. He felt, despite the strange dreams and the piercing headaches and the general air of uncertainty, that things were going to work themselves out for the both of them.

They ended up finishing a bottle of wine, and then another half of one. When Loki got up, he could feel his knees dizzy beneath him, the floor shifting ever so slightly. Prior to meeting Thor, he rarely went out, and even rarer was he out drinking enough to feel the room tilt. He took Thor’s arm again, like the first night, laughing as they walked out of the restaurant. 

It was late, and the drizzle had evolved into steady rain. Loki walked into it without noticing, and it surprised Thor again, how someone who seemed to put together— almost to the point of primness— could at turns be so careless and casual. Thor pulled him back, under the awning. He only wanted a moment to open his umbrella but he got an armful of Loki instead, breathless from drink and weather, from being rushed back so suddenly, laughing close in Thor’s face. In one, steady movement, Thor turned them so Loki’s back was pressed up against the building’s wall, with Thor’s hand on his waist. 

Loki tilted his head up just enough to look Thor in the eye, a smile on his lips. “Hi,” he said, and it came out like a challenge.

“Hi.”

There was a moment— just a moment— that passed between them, suspended in the air, slack and glowing between them. 

Then Thor leaned in to close the space, and the whole world pitched.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The two of you have been,” Verðandi announced, “in a word: unbearable.”

PART TWO  
1

It felt like a string had been pulled taut, some imaginary thread sharpening and righting the wrongness of space. It went straight through the both of them; it was a compass pointing north. Thor could feel the ground shifting under his feet— a brief moment where he mistook it for an earthquake— and then his body, thrown up, all alight. He could feel Loki in his peripheral, too, but when he craned his head to look Loki’s head was tilted up, gaze focused on the color pouring down on them. His expression was somber, like a man marching toward war. Thor had never seen that on his face before, and realized how panicked and unguarded he must have looked in comparison. 

Everything shifted to the point of nausea. Thor’s stomach seemed to lurch seconds behind the rest of his body, wine threatening to come back up. When it— whatever it was, the sensation of being ripped apart— finally stopped, he found himself on the floor, spilled out onto it, of a great, marble hall. The ceilings were higher than his vision allowed. In front of him stood a dais on which three elderly women sat. Everything was slate grey, and seemed to be pulsing with an ancient light. Next to him, Loki was already standing, stiff-shouldered.

Thor stood up as well, and realized they were wearing different clothes. 

“No,” one of the women croaked out. Thor had not noticed he had opened his mouth, was about to speak, before she prematurely interrupted him. “This is not a dream, little one.”

Thor shut his mouth. He looked at Loki again, who was avoiding his gaze, and still looking straight ahead. 

“Should we give them a moment to remember?” the one who was called Skuld, Thor instinctively knew, asked. As he continued to watch them, Thor began to notice something impossible about their appearances. When the light shifted, they seemed to change. One moment, they were unthinkably elderly, with long, thin threads of hair coming out of their ears, and the next, they were as young and as beautiful as any women Thor had ever seen. Their eyes shimmered and brightened, and then became dull again. Their wrinkles smoothed; they seemed to glow; they were hunchbacked; their nails yellowed. 

Thor shut his eyes tight, but when he opened them, nothing had changed.

The first one had spoken with some kindness. She was Urðr, and now she spoke again. “The important things will come first. It may take weeks for the rest.”

“Weeks? Don’t you mean years?” Skuld asked.

“She means weeks, you old bat,” the last one admonished. Verðandi. 

“What difference does time make to us?” Skuld asked.

“Not to us,” Urðr said. “But to them.” 

“I remember,” Loki said. The women, who had been more focused on one another, and partially focused on Thor, now looked carefully at him. Thor was reminded suddenly, insanely, of cartoon owls wearing glasses, peering over them to take notice. Loki spoke again in that same, flat, tone, causing something in Thor to take weight and sink. The nausea was back again. “I remember.”

“Well, of course you do,” Urðr said. She nodded once, and though she did not smile there was a clear sort of pride on her face. 

“May I go now?” Loki asked. 

“Without an explanation?” Skuld asked. She looked surprised. 

Loki didn’t say anything. He simply looked at them.

“I,” Thor began, shifting his gaze from Loki, to the women, to Loki again, “I want an explanation. This is a dream. We were just outside— we had dinner. I don’t understand.” 

He was looking at Loki, but it was Urðr who spoke. “You must remember who you are first.”

“I’m— ”

It happened quick, and all at once. Thor was not stupid; he was just a moment or two behind. What came to him was this: thousands of years in perfect unison, filing cabinets bursting open, stacks of books and parchment, mosaics of events fitting themselves back together. Thor, prince of Asgard. Thor, protector of Midgard. Thor, the unworthy. Thor, king. Hundreds of lives, one after the other. The corridors of his palace, haunting his dreams. The blood in his hands, too, hot and slick, unwilling to be put back again. All those steps in the dark, trying to tell him something, and his brother, now, here, alive again. His brother. 

“Loki,” he said. But Loki did not turn.

“He remembers!” Skuld cackled, looking at the other two with all the glee of a very old baby. 

“I don’t understand,” Thor repeated. 

“Remembering is not the same as understanding,” Verðandi said. “We’ve only asked you to remember.”

Heat rushed in; blood pounding in his ears. It did not matter right now, whether or not he showed deference to the Norns. They had done something to his body and mind that could never be undone. Thor felt the rage of it morph into light in and around his veins. Something was crackling. “Are you going to explain it to me or not?” 

“The two of you have been,” Verðandi announced, “in a word: unbearable.” Though she spoke calmly, and with great and sudden dignity, her anger was palpable. “You have shirked your responsibilities time and time again to fight, to betray, and to cast one another aside. You have caused irreversible damage; you have forgotten who you are to each other. We, the Norns, who rule the destinies of Gods and Men alike, who tend to the roots and branches of Yggdrasil, who watch over the nine realms and connect past, present, and future, have witnessed your abject, relentless stupidity for thousands of years. We, the Norns, have had enough of your insolence and your childish, petty bickering.”

“We had you forget yourselves so that you could remember one another,” Urðr said. She spoke with less anger than her sister; she spoke with the serene disappointment of a gentle aunt. 

“Who else knew?” Loki asked, clenching his jaw. Thor had no doubt he was thinking of their father. “Who else witnessed what you’ve done?”

“The years you spent on Midgard passed within half an Asgardian day,” Urðr said.

“You have not been missed,” Skuld added, unnecessarily. 

Thor watched the muscles in Loki’s jaw working. By some miracle, he had managed to hold in every unkind thing that was threatening to spill. Instead, he asked, again: “May I go now?”

“As you wish, little one,” Urðr said. But they were the ones to go. She took her sisters’ hands in hers, and with a final look upon the princes from where they stood, they sputtered into thin air. 

Thor watched the scene around him change into something more familiar: the home he had once known and loved so well. The hall shrunk and warmed, awash with the vibrant colors of Asgard, the throne at the center of the dais flickering into sight. Everything was as it once was, except for them, and while Thor considered the changes in view, Loki had turned on his heel, and was walking out of the room. 

“Wait!” he called, jogging up after him. “Wait,” he said again, taking Loki’s wrist in his hand, forcing him to turn toward Thor.

There was only the slightest moment of hesitation. Anyone else would have missed it. 

“What?” Loki finally gritted out.

“Don’t you think we should talk about this?”

“No.”

“Hey,” Thor said, trying to make his brother look at him. “I didn’t do this. Don’t be angry with me.”

“I am not angry with you,” Loki said, snatching his wrist back. “I am just angry. Leave me be.” 

And before Thor could protest any further, Loki left him standing there alone.

2

It was disorienting to be back. To remember everything at once. To remember the hours before, their knees against one another, watching Loki laugh like it was a magic trick only he’d been let in on. Thor wanted to lie down, to take some time, to untangle his complicated feelings on his own. He found he knew things without having to think about them— the way back to his chambers from the throne room, the fact that it was Sunday and there would be a feast, the amount of self control it must have taken Loki not to tear the room apart when they were standing in it, the Norns as well. 

Thor knew it wasn’t a dream, dreamlike though it seemed. He knew what had been done to them had been done to countless others, had been a form of punishment so common and uncreative for the Norns that it must have seemed boring to them the entire time. Whether the old women had known what would have happened and whether they would have cared was beyond Thor’s immediate list of priorities. The rest of Asgard was entirely, and blissfully, unaware. They had lived thirty years— half lives— as humans on Midgard, and no one around them had even bat an eye.

Did Thor mourn that lost life? A little. It had been easy at least, so unspectacular and ordinary that simply meeting Loki on a beautiful day had been a great event. He did mourn it. He felt he had lost something irretrievable. 

He walked down the corridors of his dreams and walked into Sif and Fandral, who were smiling to see him. They were both in armor, looking tired but happy. Out of habit and friendship, he smiled back.

“Thor!” Fandral exclaimed, throwing his arms up, turning his existence into a spectacle. “We missed you on the training grounds today.”

“Not as much as I missed training,” Thor replied, smoothly. “The king had me review at least forty documents from Vanaheim.” 

Fandral frowned. “That is terrible news. What an unfortunate way to spend a Sunday.” 

“It’s not over yet.”

“That,” Fandral said, clapping a hand on Thor’s shoulder, “it is not. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have only four hours to get ready for tonight’s feast.” 

Thor found himself smiling despite everything. “It would be an insurmountable tragedy if you wasted another second talking to me.”

“When you are right, Thor, you are right.” 

They both laughed. And with a single salute, Fandral was on his way to admire himself in the six mirrors he had hung up in his apartments. As soon as he was out of earshot, Sif turned to study Thor seriously.

“What is it?” she asked.

“What?”

“Something is wrong with you. I can tell.”

Thor sighed. “You don’t always have to tell.” 

“You look exhausted.”

“I am.”

“Where were you really?”

“Midgard,” Thor relented. “For thirty years.”

Sif’s eyes widened. To her credit and as a testament of her unquestioning loyalty, she did not ask any stupid questions like: “what?” or “really?” or “are you joking?”. Instead, she only asked: “how is that possible?” 

“The Norns,” Thor said. He sounded as tired as he looked.

“I should have guessed. Do I want to know what you did to upset them so much?”

“It wasn’t one thing. It was everything.” 

“If you like, I can cover for you tonight. Say that you aren’t feeling well, or that you’re off doing me a favor somewhere.”

Thor smiled. He touched her arm, gently. “Thank you, but I’ll go. I need to speak with Loki anyway.”

“Was he with you?”

“You all were,” Thor said. “Versions of you.” 

“But we were here, Thor. We were on Asgard the entire time.” 

“Are you sure?”

“You heard Fandral,” Sif said with an incredulous laugh. “We were training all morning. I have the cuts to prove it— ” She twisted her arm toward Thor, where the slightest sliver of tricep was bare. It was spotless. “I swear, I just— ”

“You won’t remember it,” Thor said. “It wasn’t your lesson to learn.” 

“How could I have been somewhere else for thirty years and not remember it?” 

“The Norns manipulate whoever and whatever they like. They do this because they think we are malleable, and that our personal feelings don’t matter. What they’re interested in are just the big events— and making sure we act accordingly enough to cause them.”

“I wasn’t aware so much was known about their intentions,” Sif said, carefully. She had never been one to shy from disagreeing with Thor— certainly not privately. But there was something dangerous and tenacious in his look, and it worried her. She felt it best to tread lightly. 

“It isn’t,” Thor said. He started walking again and she had no choice but to follow. “But I know when I’m being used.” It was why his immediate reaction was indignation, whereas Loki had treated the moment as a stalemate. This was his brother’s territory, not Thor’s. It was why he knew without knowing that Loki was in his room right now, stewing over being caught in a game where none of the rules could be manipulated to his own favor, torn between equal parts of hatred and begrudging respect. 

Outside of his room, they stopped, and Sif looked at him with a weariness that wasn’t altogether unfounded. She could read his rages better than anyone; she just couldn’t calm them. 

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Thor said. It was a sad answer, and they both knew it. “There’s nothing I can do about this— there is nothing I can do to them. Not in retaliation, not in revenge. Not even I have the arrogance to disrespect the Norns.” 

“I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“It happened to all of us.”

“But I don’t remember it,” Sif said, “and I can be angry for days about having lived and lost all that time, but I can’t change the reality of the Fates’ hold over our lives, and I can’t act as though it’s had some big impact on me. That wouldn’t be fair and it wouldn’t be consistent. I don’t feel as though something has been taken from me. But you, Thor— clearly they wanted you to change in some way, and it seems as though you have.”

Thor didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. 

“Is it for the better?”

“We’ll see,” Thor said, opening his door. As much as he loved Sif, and as much as he valued her insight, he just didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “I’ll see you tonight.” 

She nodded once, and she let him be. 

Once inside, it took every ounce of willpower within him not to leave again. It was, he felt, incredibly unfair of Loki to be the only other person on this realm to have had the experience he just had and lock his thoughts up with him. But that was how Loki was. He gathered up all of his feelings until he could no longer stand them, and dealt with them in private. It was only in moments of severe, sudden shock that Loki let his emotions get the better of him, and though he had been on the verge— Thor had seen it— in the great hall earlier, Thor knew that Loki would rather chew off his own tongue than completely lose it in front of those three old women. 

Thor wanted to go to him regardless, to shake it out of him. In his past lives, in the private, familial wars they had before, despite the hurt they caused one another, Thor had wanted to comfort his brother, and he had wanted to be comforted by him. This, at least, had not changed. As angry as Loki made him, and as many times as he had broken his heart, Thor could not help but remember what they had once meant to one another, and what they could mean still. They had grown up together. They had sat up for hours into the early morning, laughing under pillow forts, telling one another their truest secrets, reciting old folktales, promising to always protect one another. Now, Thor felt something else, and he didn’t want to face it on his own. Or maybe— that wasn’t the truth of it. Maybe the truth of it was that he felt something else, and he didn’t want it to vanish along with their old lives.

He remembered seeing Loki out under the awning, with the rain coming down. The tightness in his chest. The openness of possibility, unraveling out before him. All of it. He sat in his empty room and remembered the feeling of seeing him.

3

In his chambers, Loki paced. He felt cramped and unhinged, a wild animal locked in a cage. It was worse than having been imprisoned in the dungeons of his own fucking castle, all those years ago. It was worse because he had not done anything wrong to deserve this unrest, this humiliation. Years of his life stolen so that a trio of old, unremitting hags could _make a point_. He wanted to throw things; he wanted to use his seidr to rip the curtains off their hinges, tear the bedspread in two. He imagined a whirlwind of fury and smoke unleashed on the castle, taking his books and his furniture with it, taking the throne and taking Thor, too. All these things he’s loved and hated, taking them away from him. 

He did not think about _Thor_ , or the look in his eyes in the great hall, pleading for him to stay and talk. Loki focused instead on calming the unfiltered rage pulsing through his body, his memory mocking him for all of his weakness, for wanting to be better, for _trying_ to make a life out of a trick of the light. 

He had barked at an attendant on the way in, and the young man knocked at his door now, ready to prepare him for the feast. 

“Come in,” Loki said, opening the door from afar with a wave of his hand. “Clean that up first.” He indicated a small, overturned table and a shattered bottle of wine, one book soaked in it, lying open on the ground. He barely remembered breaking any of it. 

The attendant said nothing and got to work, quickly sweeping the mess up and then disappearing from sight. His name was Magni and he was the son of one of Odin’s most trusted advisors. Despite his family’s poor taste in friends, he was a good kid— eager to serve and decently loyal, if clumsy at times. When he came back Loki had already chosen the clothes he liked for the night, placed them onto the bed. He concentrated very hard on doing this without ripping anything to bits, his thin fingers trembling for violence. Magni, to his credit, could recognize Loki’s dark moods from a mile away, and wisely chose not to ask any impertinent questions. 

Loki sat in front of the mirror and Magni began to brush his hair. 

“I brought you breakfast this morning,” Magni said, finally, after some time. “You were not here to have it.”

“Yes, I am obviously aware I was not here.”

Magni flinched— ever so slightly. Loki sighed, the exhaustion hitting him all at once.

“Thank you anyway.”

Magni nodded, a bit of the tension around his shoulders dissipating. “Shall I braid it, Prince Loki?”

“Do what you will,” Loki said, then abruptly, urged by memory, changed his mind. “Actually— yes. I suddenly feel the desire to make an effort.” Magni nodded again, opening a small chest of jewels and finely made ornaments on the dresser. He threaded thin, silk-like gold through Loki’s hair, braiding thin plaits here and there, letting the rest of his hair down loose, in relaxed curls. “This, too,” Loki said, choosing a long, golden pendant seemingly at random. The medallion at the center was stamped with a snake. Magni clasped it at Loki’s neck.

“You look very handsome,” Magni said, almost shyly. Loki rewarded him for this with a smile. He stood and stripped out of his day clothes, letting his attendant do the rest. Magni dressed him carefully, with light, nimble fingers. 

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Magni asked, when he was finished.

“Have you replaced my wine?”

“Straight away, your grace.” 

He sent the young man away shortly after he returned with a new bottle and set of glasses. Loki almost laughed at it, wondering who it was he would ever invite into his chambers and have a glass of wine with. Those days had been over for quite some time. He sat instead, alone, at what was once his favorite nook of the room— the bay window, overlooking his mother’s gardens— and drank, alone. The flowers, which were always in bloom, glimmered in the perfect golden hour light, as though trying to reassure him. He thought of his mother and how badly he needed her, though he would never hear her voice or feel her kindness again. 

It was like this all the time on Asgard. He had become accustomed to it over the years, but the Norns had thrown him off. They had reminded him what it was to be sought after and valued, to be greeted with delight instead of disdain, or indifference, or suspicion. They had set him back ages, Loki thought bitterly, glaring out the window, where even the flowers seemed to wither under his gaze. It wasn’t fair; they didn’t deserve it. 

He finished the bottle and refused to let himself regret it. He would be fine. He chased it with two glasses of water, took a breath, and walked out his door. 

The Great Hall had been polished and decorated, long tables intricately set with the finest kitchenware— a weekly tradition Loki had always found insufferable, as Asgardians always managed to get too drunk to appreciate anything delicate. Neither his brother nor his father were in attendance when he arrived; Loki reminded himself he did not have to be there either. But then— how long? How long would he hide from this? It was better that things went back to normal, as miserable as the norm had always been for him. It was better than whatever alternative he could imagine, where things inevitably got worse, because they could never manage to improve. 

He ignored the cold smiles of the other diners as he walked by them— nobles and visiting envoys and important members of the royal household, of his father’s war council, of his brother’s personal retinue. He sat at his place near the head of the table, the fourth most important seat, as Frigga’s spot had never been replaced or abandoned, and as, of course, Loki was beneath his brother in every way. He had his wine cup filled before surveying the rest of the table for something he might like to eat. 

Every dish imaginable had been made. Loki helped himself to a morsel of meat and potatoes, although he had no appetite left. He had all but changed his mind, prepared to leave, when the chair beside him shifted and Thor sat down. Loki pretended not to notice.

“Brother,” Thor said, his gaze burning into Loki’s cheek. “How are you?”

Loki put the daintiest piece of chicken in his mouth so he would not have to speak. 

Thor gestured for some wine, then began piling food onto his plate. Loki could not help but glance over at his plate and sniff in displeasure. 

“Loki,” Thor said, sounding— what? Rushed? Desperate? There was something frantic and anxious in his energy; it permeated off of him. Loki hated it insistently. He took another sip of wine. “You must speak to me eventually.”

Under the table, Thor found Loki’s hand. It was resting on his lap, and now it was covered by Thor’s bigger one. Something flushed through him then, and he made the mistake of meeting Thor’s eyes. They bore into him, sad and concerned. Loki wriggled his hand out of Thor’s grasp and set it on the table where it could not be held without a few hundred eyes seeing. Thor sighed, but finally turned to his own meal, eating methodically, with none of his usual joy. Loki resented the loss of attention instantly, then resented himself for it. 

Time passed. It felt like months.

“I gave you that,” Thor said, after a moment, indicating the pendant around Loki’s neck. Loki looked down at it, as if only just noticing.

“Did you?” Loki asked, coolly. “I don’t remember.”

“I did,” Thor insisted. “It was a gift. You said you’d keep it with you always.” 

It was dramatic when it did not need to be, Loki could admit to this. He did it anyway. He yanked the chain from his neck, one-handed, and tossed it onto the table. Then he speared a potato with his fork, more violently than necessary, and ate it. He chewed slowly enough to make his jaw ache. 

His father eventually joined them, and held Thor’s interest for the rest of the night. It only agitated Loki’s fury further, and he found himself having another glass of wine. Finally, when he could not take it anymore, he stood up without preamble, and left. 

It took Thor mere minutes to chase after him.

“Loki,” he called out, and somehow Loki’s body betrayed him, and stopped. “I thought you said you weren’t angry with me,” Thor said, when he caught up with him. He looked hurt. Loki wanted to press the palms of his hands against his chest, and shove him away.

“Because,” Thor continued, “it feels like you’re angry with me.” 

Loki took a step back, toward the wall, where he could lean against it with his arms crossed and not have to worry about standing upright along with everything else on his mind. He had had too much to drink; he realized that now. Thor was looking at him expectantly, like he knew what to say at all. He didn’t always know what to say, and he wished that Thor would understand even just that one, tiny thing about him, if anything at all. It felt impossible now, to go back to anything, to their lives before Midgard, to whatever it was that was happening to them on Midgard. Loki was not only angry; he also didn’t know how to act anymore. All the carefully drawn lines in the sand had been wiped away. 

“What difference does it make?” Loki settled on, focusing. He managed not to slur a single word. “We have gone years without speaking.”

Thor squinted at him, at his brother. He had come up with a dozen different things to say, in his room, alone. He had outlined a speech; and he had predicted all the ways Loki would try to avoid and derail the conversation, the various avenues he could take, how Thor himself would bring them back on track, focusing on the matter at hand, on the Norns, on their feelings. He had done so much work for such an instance such as this, specifically. So of course, what he wound up saying, was: “Loki, are you insane.”

Loki bristled at that. “What,” he said.

“Clearly things are different than the years before,” Thor said. 

“Why? Because on top of your general disdain for my existence and my actions, your looking down on my decisions, and your complete lack of trust in me as your brother and once-friend, now you want to fuck me as well?”

Thor took a deep breath. This wasn’t how he had expected the conversation to go. He should have been used to it, now, with Loki, but he still had Midgard rattling around in his head, how tentative and playful and kind they had been with one another. He had Loki’s face, framed by light and by rain, looking toward him. Now, back home, it was all poison and daggers again. Thor thought of his dream— the one where he was bleeding from his abdomen. He did not have to think too hard at who might have hurt him. He licked his lips, scrambling for a response that could keep this conversation going, that could warm Loki into more answers. 

“The Norns did this so we could be better towards each other,” Thor said.

“The Norns did this because they are miserable, bored, old witches who like to play with us for sport.” 

“Don’t speak of them that way.”

“You are on their side now? Over mine— as usual, I should add. I’m not surprised that— ”

“I am concerned,” Thor interrupted, his tone sharpening, “that their next punishment will be even worse.” 

“I don’t see why you need to worry,” Loki said, flippantly. “I’m sure it won’t affect you at all this time.” 

“I don’t only worry about myself.” 

Loki pushed himself off the wall at that, shaking his head. “We have been enemies for far too long,” he said. “I don’t see why that should change now.”

“Really, Loki? Don’t you?”

“I can’t go through it again, Thor,” Loki said. All the heat had vanished from his voice; he only looked small and tired now. “We were friends, once. And then we were not.”

“We could be— ” Thor started.

“We’re brothers.”

Thor shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said softly. 

They looked at one another for a moment. Loki thought about his brother, who spent their childhood lifting him into trees to climb and sneaking away the best pastries from the kitchens for him and taking the blame for broken vases, smashed picture frames, and shattered windows, whether it was his fault or not. He remembered his brother, who ran through the gardens with a fake sword— first screaming _I’m a Valkyrie_ then screaming _I’m the King_ — who ran toward him and stopped short and knelt on one knee and told him _I’m the King of Asgard and you are safe now and forever, Prince Loki_. His brother who made him laugh when he cried, who searched for him on Midgard when he was at his worst, who tried to see the good in him when everyone else had already stopped. 

He thought of how Thor got when he wanted something, how he would tear apart the heavens if it meant having it. He thought of his brother, who would be king, throwing it all away, his future and his reputation, the love of his father and the love of his people, for one night— maybe two— maybe one hundred nights— with Loki, all to eventually come to the inevitable conclusion that it had not been worth it. And sticking around out of a sense of duty, after the love had faded. He would not do that. He could not do that to his brother, who he hated, and who he loved above all things.

“I care,” Loki said. He was distant again; Thor knew he was losing his attention and his patience. “A long time ago you told me to remember my place, brother.”

“I had spoken out of anger.”

Loki shrugged, as though it meant nothing. “I have not forgotten since then. This cannot, and will not, happen. Go back to your life, and I’ll go back to mine.”

“Then it would have all been for nothing,” Thor said. 

Loki seemed to consider that. “We could… call a truce. If you wanted that.” 

Thor didn’t say anything, but he was watching him, carefully. It would be better, under these circumstances, to let Loki set the rules and define the boundaries. Thor didn’t know if he had it in him to do so himself. 

“We could be brothers again. I am tired of fighting you, of pretending it can change anything anyway. I want to— ” he stopped here, feeling too exposed, out in the middle of the hallway. This was not the type of conversation to be had without preparation, without terms, without careful consideration. He could propose anything, now; he could ask for anything from the future king of Asgard, and Thor would be forced to consider it, because they had already started the discussion. He wished, briefly, that he was more sober. But then it would have been impossible. “I don’t want to… be cast aside, anymore. I don’t want to be treated as a nuisance you have to weather, just because we are family.” 

“I have never seen you as a nuisance,” Thor said, and though Loki could not tell whether this was a lie, he chose to let it slide. “What do you want, then?” 

Loki’s mouth twitched. There had been no time where he’d been asked that before. “I would sit on your council,” he said, suddenly emboldened. “I would help you rule.” 

“And you would… not lead me astray?” Thor asked, openly and honestly enough, only serving to irritate Loki further. His eyes narrowed, like a cat’s. 

“Will you begin a truce with suspicion?” 

“I remember your council,” Thor said. “I remember going into Jotunheim, and then being stripped of my powers, and banished.” 

Loki focused on pulling at a string on his sleeve. The thread unraveled in his hand. “That conversation was the first time you had looked at me in weeks.” 

“I did not deserve what you did to me.” 

“No,” Loki said, looking up at him again, his expression a mixture of indignation and regret. “But I did not deserve to be forgotten, either.”

Thor sighed. “I will put it behind us. I will try to put it all behind us.” 

Loki nodded. He turned to leave.

“And if you feel slighted, you will talk to me about it first.” 

That gave Loki pause. Again, another possibility he had not considered. The opportunity to mend something rather than finish breaking it completely. He nodded again. 

“And,” Thor said, pressing the pendant back into Loki’s hand. “I wish you would consider— ”

“It’s been a long day,” Loki interrupted. “I’d like to sleep now.” 

“Very well,” Thor said. “Goodnight.” 

Loki did not say anything back. He walked, carefully, back to his room, and he collapsed on the bed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki approached him now, standing too close in the shadow of the inner wall. They were in the back of the castle, where no one but attendants on obscure missions really went during the day. The baths were utilized most frequently in the morning and at night, and Thor was grateful for the quiet, despite his own blood buzzing in his ears. Loki watched him for a long, private moment. Then he said— “you’re bleeding”— and touched two fingers to Thor’s lower lip. 

4

Weeks passed and they did not see each other. Thor focused his frustration and disappointment into training, some days with a sword in his hand, and others with nothing at all. He did not use Mjolnir on the training grounds, but he missed the feel of her in his hands. He missed too much, these days. He thought of tattoos. He thought of a funny old dog with a face like a bilgesnipe, although he had already begun to forget what its name had been. 

He thought of the others, too— the ones who did not belong on Asgard with him. Nick Fury and Pietro and his sister. Loki’s friend, Bucky Barnes and his husband Steve. Where were they now, and did they wonder about their old friends? Had they been pulled back and forth in time? Had Steve Rogers woken up in one bed, beside the man he loved, and gone to sleep in another, in the Tower, waiting to save the world? Thor did not understand how it worked, and he did not believe he had the nerve to seek the Norns out and make them explain. He did not know whether it was possible— whether Norns could be sought. What the consequences to that would be. 

He could ask Heimdall. He made a note to.

His friends challenged him to a fight every once in a while, but they too could tell his moods had been off lately, and they did not know how to mend him. The day was bright, and the sun warmed his shoulders, the armor at his chest. He kept thinking of other things and feeling like he had lost somehow. Hogun invited him to spar, pulling him out of his thoughts. For that, at least, Thor could be grateful. 

They stood in the middle of the pit, facing off, as others began to slow their own fights and take notice. Hogun had forgone his mace Hridgandr for a sword matching Thor’s. They nodded to one another, and began. Thor advanced first, swinging at Hogun’s knees, which Hogun deftly avoided with a slight step back. This was part of Hogun’s style, light and sure, quick, redirecting blow after blow until his opponent became weary, started making mistakes. Thor knew this about him; he adapted as well as he could. He waited for Hogun to strike.

Hogun moved toward him, side-stepped, and struck his sword at Thor’s back shoulder. Thor twisted out of the way and blocked. The first block of the fight; the crowd, which had grown very still, all began to cheer. Thor pivoted toward Hogun, ready to lunge, and Hogun side-stepped again. Thor pivoted, and Hogun side-stepped. They could do this, Thor knew, for hours, until he eventually tired, and Hogun made his move. He had started the fight frustrated— already at a disadvantage— poised to make a mistake. He took a breath to shake his thoughts of Loki and Midgard away.

Stepping in, Thor raised his sword to swing overhand. Hogun parried the attack, and leapt away. Thor followed this time, advancing, the heat of the sun directly overhead them now. Their swords struck once, disengaged, and struck again. Hogun shifted on his feet, preparing to side-step again, but Thor caught it just in time and put all of his weight into the strike, knocking Hogun’s sword out of his hand. A glint of green light caught his eye— on the stands— at the highest point sat his brother, legs crossed, watching him. There was a moment, brief, fleeting. When Thor turned his attention back to Hogun, he met a fist to the face, and toppled over.

“Shit,” he said, when he came to.

“Shit!” Hogun said, taking his hand and pulling him up. “I thought you were paying attention.”

Thor touched his own jaw gingerly, felt that it wasn’t broken. “It’s fine,” he said, only just a little dazed. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t think of it,” Thor said, clapping Hogun on the shoulder. “Good fight. You deserved that one.” 

The crowd parted as he walked through it, his hand still at his jaw. They spoke in hushed whispers among themselves, some of them clapping him on the back, others returning to their own weapons and opponents. He walked back into the palace and headed toward the baths, shrugging off some of his armor and leaving it scattered across the floor. Something was watching him from the shadows. It leaned against a pillar on the outer wall, guarded by shade, and it followed him in silence until Thor entered the cool, empty hall leading to the baths.

“I didn’t realize you’d be knocked out,” Loki said, when they were alone, “by my mere presence.” 

Thor snorted, pressing his aching back against the cold marble wall. He was out of breath; he could feel each and every bruise forming. 

Loki approached him now, standing too close in the shadow of the inner wall. They were in the back of the castle, where no one but attendants on obscure missions really went during the day. The baths were utilized most frequently in the morning and at night, and Thor was grateful for the quiet, despite his own blood buzzing in his ears. Loki watched him for a long, private moment. Then he said— “you’re bleeding”— and touched two fingers to Thor’s lower lip. 

Thor stood very, very still. He brushed his hand again Loki’s, because in the dark between them he felt like he could do this. He linked their index fingers first, grazing Loki’s palm with his thumb. Neither of them broke eye contact when Thor laced his fingers with Loki’s. Neither of them moved apart. 

“Why did you come?” he asked.

“I’ve always liked watching you fight.”

“I haven’t seen you in days,” Thor said. “What happened to our truce?”

“I’ve been thinking.” 

Thor leaned in. It was almost easy to exist in the privacy of the moment, both of them achingly sober, exhausted in their own way. He pressed his forehead against Loki’s. “About what?” he asked. Loki could feel the heat radiating off of him, muddling his thoughts. He couldn’t remember what he was talking about.

“Don’t do this,” Loki said. His other hand, the one not holding Thor’s, pressed between them now, at Thor’s chest. He wanted to dig his fingers in. 

“You started it. Just now. You followed me here and put your hands on me.”

“I’m the terrible one,” Loki said, quietly. “Remember?” 

“Do you know what I think?” Thor asked, just as quietly, pulling away only to look Loki in the eyes.

Loki watched him, guarded.

“I think you want people to believe you are terrible, so they don’t expect too much of you.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki said. “I am the one who took the throne from you and father.”

“In father’s guise, yes. No one knew who you were, and no one but me would have guessed. You put too much pressure on yourself to be better than everyone else, and then you fall apart when you fail because you don’t realize it’s impossible to be better than everyone else.”

Now, Loki’s eyes flashed with anger. He moved to pull away, but Thor held him in place.

“That’s rich, coming from you. _You_ have always been better than everyone else.” 

“Is that what you think?” Thor asked, and it was only then that Loki realized he might have admitted something he had not meant to. 

“Let me go,” Loki said, and immediately regretted it when Thor did. He took one step back, anyway, and looked Thor up and down. “You’re filthy.” 

“I was on my way to change that when you stopped me.” 

“Don’t let me delay you any longer, then.”

“Join me,” Thor said. 

Loki closed his eyes to summon whatever willpower he had. “No,” he said.

“You want to.” The words held none of Thor’s usual arrogance. They were quiet, almost hopeful. As if there were any doubt in either of their minds.

“Still no.” 

“Soon, I will stop asking,” Thor said, watching him carefully.

“You will not,” Loki said. 

“I will,” Thor insisted. “You cannot have it both ways, brother. Why have me chase after you when it isn’t what you want?”

“What I want is— and always has been— irrelevant, you idiot. You are the future King of Asgard.”

“And as king, I should be able to do whatever I like.”

“You would think that,” Loki said, with a humorless laugh, growing suddenly cold. “You are so stupid; you think you can have whatever you want.”

“Oh, now I am stupid?”

“Just because you’ve been handed everything all your life. You were like this on Midgard, too. Insistent. Coming to dinner with me, buying me drinks. Changing your course to walk with me, as if I wanted the company.”

“You _asked_ me to dinner!” Thor said, feeling suddenly crazy. “You came looking for me; you left me your number.” 

“You weaseled your way into my life,” Loki continued, eyes flashing in anger. He could go from zero to one hundred so quickly— it made Thor’s head spin. It always seemed to happen before he even realized he was in danger, like a hidden pistol going off, every window in the house shuttering open without warning. Loki approached him again, livid; Thor could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. He hadn’t done anything to set it off, this time, his brother had done that somehow all on his own, with whatever dark, vengeful thoughts he’d been thinking up in the weeks they’d been apart. Who did Loki talk to, Thor wondered, when he wasn’t talking to him? What strange, inappropriate company did he keep? 

“I would have been fine,” Loki said, pointing a finger at Thor’s chest now, “if you hadn’t interrupted everything, the way you always do. I had _friends_ , I had a place to myself, I had interests and job interviews, and _space_ , I didn’t have your _achievements_ hanging over my head— ”

“I thought,” Thor said, as calmly as possible, “we were leaving all of that in the past.” 

“How easy for you to say.”

“It was your idea! I don’t— where is this coming from, all of a sudden? We were completely fine three minutes ago; we had a— there was a moment— and now, I don’t understand. Do you _want_ a fight?” 

“Yes,” Loki said, and pushed Thor back into the wall. He kept his hands on his shoulders, breathing hard. “ _Why_ are you always half naked? I could gut you like this. I could slip a blade right into your heart, and no one would get to you in time.” 

“You don’t want,” Thor said, suddenly understanding, “to hurt me.” In one, swift motion, he flipped them, so that Loki’s back was against the wall and Thor’s hands were pressing him into place. “Tell me what you want instead.”

Loki didn’t respond. There was something raging in his eyes, something feral, something he was afraid of. Thor watched him swallow, very careful not to open his mouth, keeping himself still so that he couldn’t say anything incriminating. Thor remembered a moment like this, not so long ago, leaning into Loki in another time, in another world. He remembered the wall behind Loki’s back. He remembered the rain.

“Tell me, then, to stop.” 

Again, Loki did not respond. Thor kissed him then, a floodgate breaking apart between them. Loki’s hands flew to Thor’s neck, pulling him in closer, harder. He opened his mouth to him and made a sharp, quiet noise at Thor’s tongue in it, tasting all of his rage and heat. However he angled himself, it wasn’t enough— he bit at Thor’s lips and kissed them again, his fingertips leaving bruises on Thor’s neck and collar. 

He realized that he wanted something he couldn’t verbalize, something violent and cathartic and endless all at once; he realized that kissing Thor in the quiet hallways of their home would never satisfy him, not in a thousand years. If it hadn’t been for his position sandwiched between Thor and the wall he might have jumped out of his own skin, his grip on his brother tightening as if in danger of being lifted away, of falling into another abyss. Thor broke for air but Loki pulled him back, angry still until Thor’s mouth and teeth found the soft spot at his pulse and sucked hard enough to elicit a moan, low in the back of Loki’s throat. He unlaced Thor’s pants and thrust a hand into them quickly enough to take Thor by surprise, earning him a bite that nearly made him cry out in pain. Nearly. 

Encouraged, Loki took hold of Thor’s hardness and twisted his wrist. He was pleased to hear Thor’s breath stutter in his own mouth, which Thor had finally found again, after destroying Loki’s neck. _Ice_ , Loki thought, manically, still caught somewhere between keeping his wits about him and taking his clothes off right here, in the middle of the afternoon. _I’ll need ice, later, for the bruising_. 

Something happened then: footsteps, a voice from the top of the corridor. “Who’s there?” the voice called out. Some passing attendant, unused to seeing anyone around at that hour. 

They pulled apart, barely. It would have been more suspicious to jump away from one another— and Loki still had Thor in hand. 

“It’s— fine,” Thor called out, trying to neutralize his voice, his breath. Loki could hear their hearts pounding; his mouth was still against his brother’s wounded jaw. 

“Prince Thor?” 

“Yes,” Thor said, “it’s only— ” and here, because he was the type of man he was, and because it was so _easy_ , Loki pumped his hand, just once. He felt Thor tense against him, one hand crushing Loki’s shoulder. “It’s only me,” Thor managed to say, when he felt he could safely speak. Loki laughed, softly against his chest. 

“Well, all right,” the man said. “Have a pleasant afternoon, your grace.”

Thor didn’t reply. He looked at Loki until they heard the footsteps fading away, and then took him by both wrists, planting them up over Loki’s head, against the wall. Loki, in turn, pressed his lips together, and when he couldn’t hold it in any longer, burst into laughter. 

“What is wrong with you?” Thor hissed. “Why are you like this?”

Loki’s gaze went upward, to where his hands were pinned above his head. “You like me like this,” he said. 

Slowly, Thor let go, allowing Loki the smile he deserved. He took a step back, tying up his laces again, shaking his head. “What are we supposed to do?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the one with all the ideas.”

“My great idea was to avoid you until you ascended and then again until one or both of us died.”

“What kind of council would you be to me then?”

“I would write you detailed instructions and slip them under your door,” Loki said, furrowing his brow as if this were obvious.

“ _Or_ ,” Thor said, ignoring the look Loki gave him, “you could join me in the baths.”

“No.”

“For dinner tonight, then.”

“No.” 

“After.”

Loki hesitated. “No,” he said. 

  
  


5

It had become a time-honored tradition of Loki’s to never, ever run into Heimdall if he could help it. Not only did the man see enough of everything as it was, he also always somehow took Thor’s side, even when Thor was wrong, which was often, and _also_ , Loki could never forget the one entire summer when they were young and Thor spent every night visiting Heimdall at the gates, asking him ridiculous, idiotic questions about the nine realms, and taking moonlit strolls across the Bifrost with him. It was nonsense. The entire summer had been a waste. Loki couldn’t think of it without wanting to open a very small blackhole in the center of the room, and letting it eat everything around him. 

Of course it would not be Loki if he did not make every bad situation as miserable as possible for himself, so he made his way to the observatory, and lingered in the shadows until he found the patience and strength within himself to make his presence known.

“You may come out, Loki,” Heimdall said, before he could announce himself. 

“Has anyone ever told you, Gatekeeper,” Loki said, stepping into the light, “that being all-seeing is terribly irritating for the rest of us?”

“No,” Heimdall said, without taking his eyes off of the stars. They were plenty, and vast, and stretched out as far as Loki could see. Taking in the room, the clocks and the compasses, giant, gold all-encompassing atlases that showed the intersection of time, space, and dimension, Loki briefly wondered what it would be like to possess all of this information, and have no satisfactory use for it. Heimdall’s guardianship was such a passive role. 

Loki thought of all the things he could do instead. 

“Are you here to ask me of all the things I’ve seen recently?”

Loki sniffed at that. “I am here to ask you of one sight in particular.” 

“Midgard,” Heimdall said. The Bifrost had a glow, beyond them. Loki suddenly wanted to step onto it, and force his body somewhere else. Instead, he came to stand next to Heimdall, who was not an enemy, but who was still terrible in every regard. His handsomeness, his grace, his loyalty to the crown— all of this was an affront to Loki, who carefully did not remember, a very, very long time ago, strong arms lifting him up, and setting him on strong shoulders, and pointing out the nearby constellations in a soft, strong voice. 

“Yes.”

Only now did Heimdall turn to him, and patiently waited for more information.

“I would like to know of Bucky Barnes,” Loki finally said.

Heimdall nodded. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. “He is a sad man,” he said, after a thoughtful moment. “Yet his great love wakes up at his side. He considers himself lucky.” Heimdall gave Loki a sidelong glance, expressionless, yet there was some warmth in his voice when he asked: “Did you make a friend?”

“Shut up.” 

Heimdall raised an eyebrow. Loki sighed. 

“I am not going to tell anyone that you showed a positive emotion,” Heimdall said.

Loki smiled at that, looking at the ground. “No one would believe you. Tell me more.”

“They live together in a spacious brownstone in Brooklyn. They are well. He protects Midgard in the way that your brother used to, in another lifetime, and your friend Bucky helps where he can. They have a close group of friends, who they consider family at this point. They celebrate their Midgardian holidays with them, and go to sleep grateful for one another.”

Loki continued to look at the ground. 

“Sometimes he dreams of faraway places,” Heimdall continued, unprompted. He didn’t have to say this part. “What he thinks of different planets— really just realm upon undiscovered realm. Sometimes, when he is feeling lost, because he has had a hard life and it has taken its toll on him, he dreams of a young man who shares his couch and makes him laugh. You float around the edges of his life, Loki.”

“He was a good friend,” Loki finally said. “I have only loved four other people in my life, and they have all been family.”

“Queen Frigga,” Heimdall said with a nod. “Thor. Your father.” A pause. “Hela? She was a brief encounter.”

“Hela was not family,” Loki snorted. “Thor didn’t even consider Hela family, and you know how he adopts things as if it is his duty.” 

“I see…” Heimdal said. 

“Don’t you get bored?” Loki asked, abruptly, a hint of edge in his voice. “Up here all alone with your clocks?”

“I have a job. I take it seriously.” 

“Except when Thor asks you not to.” 

“My job is to protect the realm, Loki, not to blindly follow whatever arbitrary rules the kings of Asgard wish to put in place. That means your father, and your brother, and you.”

“I will never be king of anything,” Loki said. He sounded far more bitter than he felt. 

“Perhaps not.” Heimdall shrugged. “Are you going to tell me what you really came up here to ask me?”

“No,” Loki said, just to be contrary. Then: “What would you do? If you were in my position.”

“That is an impossible question, I’m afraid.”

“Could you please try to have an imagination.”

Heimdall did something then, that made Loki like him a tiny bit more. He rolled his eyes.

“You are asking me what I would do if I had fallen in love with the future king of Asgard?”

Never mind, then. Loki went right back to abject dislike. “With my _brother_ ,” he said.

“I would do nothing,” Heimdall said. “I would wait, in my observatory, and continue to look after Asgard and the other eight realms, until it passed.”

He was so calm. He was so certain of himself that Loki wished a brother onto him— a brother like Thor— just to prove him wrong. 

“Well I am not you,” he said, and he turned to leave. Heimdall, who had returned his gaze to the stars, looked perfectly unperturbed. 

“One last thing,” Loki said, stopping. He bore daggers into the back of Heimdall’s head. “You are intolerable and sanctimonious up here in your private observatory, with your smug sense of duty and your willingness to commit treason only for my stupid oaf of a brother.”

Heimdall turned around now, to give him a puzzled look.

“And you think you are more important than everyone, just because you see everything that goes on, and because you were appointed guardian of the realms, when in reality it is only a position no one else would want. I think your degree of loyalty is boring, and I think— ” Loki took a breath here, because it was not particularly easy, coming up with rude things to say Heimdall. Still, he had a lifetime of practicing behind him. “I think you are uninteresting, and no one ever misses your stories at meals.”

Heimdall watched.

“You are,” Loki said, with a lift of his chin, “my second least favorite family member.”

Heimdall inclined his head— the barest of nods. “Goodnight, Prince Loki.”

“Goodnight,” Loki said, and left.  
  


*

  
Thor sat at his desk, late into the night, going over diplomacy documents from Alfheim, comparing them to the contracts his father had drawn up, which would inevitably need to be restructured, rewritten, thrown away, and negotiated all over again. As he crossed terms out and scribbled in the margins, he could not help but glance over at the bottle of wine and empty glass he had set out for his brother, just in case. He hadn’t expected him. Hope was a stupid, nagging thing, but he would not allow it to make him stupid. 

While he worked, while his attention drifted, he noticed a piece of parchment had been slipped under his door, folded neatly in half. He picked it up and unfolded it.

_Thor,_

_Your first order of business as king should be firing Heimdall. No one knows what he does on his perch all day and all night. He is probably spending resources you cannot afford to lose._

_Second, the Alfheim negotiation is a waste of your time. Father will think of new demands on the day of, and all of your work will be for nothing._

_I wanted to knock._

_-L_

  
  


6

Miraculously, the negotiations with Alfheim turned out to be exactly what Thor needed to open a door. 

Thor had to remind himself that no one else had been affected by the Norns or their brief stint away on another realm. Business resumed as usual. The affairs of the kingdom had no interest in resting just because the princes were having (very similar) internal crises. No one knew, anyway. Odin certainly did not know, when he called Thor to the Great Hall one morning as he was breaking his fast. Thor, who had already eaten and dressed for the day, stood awkwardly by as his father spread jam at a sloth-like speed onto a piece of toast.

“You could have someone do that for you, Father,” Thor said. “Before it’s even brought out.”

“They never do it right,” Odin replied with a wave of his hand. “Sit.”

Thor sat.

“You have been very serious as of late.”

Thor did not feel the need to say anything in response.

“It’s good,” Odin said with a nod— rare praise that Thor once longed for, now seemed so arbitrary and unimportant. He knew he would be a good king, now. He did not need his father’s approval every step of the way. “It’s very good. You will sit with me during the negotiations next week. We will offer the Light Elves feast and celebration, and then we will go over these treaties and find a middle ground.” 

“Do you think the Light Elves are asking for too much?”

“You read the documents, boy. What do you think?”

Thor crossed his arms on the table. “No,” he said. “But your response to them is meager enough that it makes me think you don’t want to give them anything at all. They’re asking for men to mediate civil unrest between the northern and southern halves of the realm and your response is that we have none to spare? Father, what do you expect them to do?”

“I expect them to see to their own problems themselves,” Odin replied. “The more soldiers we lose, the more vulnerable we become to enemies who would unseat our throne.”

“They are asking for one hundred men. We have thousands. They aren’t asking for an army, they just want support.”

Odin didn’t say anything as he munched noisily away. This meant nothing, really— either he was thinking about it or he was not.

“Is that all?”

Thor shook his head. “I also think as a sign of good faith, you should be upfront with them, rather than changing all of the terms at the last minute. You’re known across the realms for that habit of yours, and they’re good allies of ours.” He hesitated a moment. “I think we should treat them as such.”

“What would be the advantage of doing that, Thor?”

“The advantage is already ours, Father. They are coming to our realm, asking for our continued aid and protection. We shouldn’t humiliate them for it.”

“Hn,” Odin said, signalling the end of that conversation. “You’re excused.”

“I have a request,” Thor said, without moving.

“What is it?”

“I’d like Loki to join us.” 

Odin squinted at him, out of his one good eye. “No,” he said flatly, then turned back to his food.

“Father,” Thor said. He waited until Odin was looking at him again. “I know he has made mistakes, but so have I, and you’ve forgiven me for them. Loki loves Asgard as much as the rest of us do, and I need him by my side if I am to be a good king.”

“Why is that?” 

“Because he sees things that I don’t see, and he is calmer and more pragmatic than I am.”

“You will never change his nature, Thor.”

“I’m not trying to change his nature,” Thor said with a one-shouldered shrug. “But if he is given an opportunity to use his intelligence and his cunning for something productive, toward this realm that he loves so much, he might spend less time focusing it on getting into trouble.” 

Odin chuckled at that, taking another loud bite of his toast. “Very well,” he said, after a moment. “I cannot and will not make all of your decisions for you, and I cannot and will not help you out of your bad ones, either. You are old enough to know whether this is a mistake. And now,” Odin said, waving him away, “you are truly excused.” 

With a nod, Thor took his leave. He had bet on, as well as against, his brother too many times in the past to count. It made him nervous to do so again, at such a crucial moment, but he was tired of the games and he was tired of feeling like they were so far apart, when once upon a time they had been so close. The Norns brought them together again for a reason, and Thor needed to trust that they at least knew what they were doing, even if he did not. More than that, he… loved Loki. It had taken meeting him all over again to remember that the effort was worth it, that all those things he had forgotten to appreciate over the years— even the sarcasm and the cutting remarks— were what made Loki so exciting to be around. It had taken the possibility of Loki’s absence, the possibility that he had not and might not always be there— not dead, just not interested in being a part of Thor’s life, for Thor to reassess and reorganize his priorities. Loki should have been a priority ages ago. Thor was determined not to let himself forget it again.

He stopped by Loki’s room on the way to the training ground, and as had become their custom over the last couple of days, slipped a note under his door. It said only: _The future king of Asgard requests your council tonight.  
  
_

*

  
“Have you summoned me here under false pretenses?” Loki asked, leaning against Thor’s doorway. It had been left open, and Thor had not heard him come by. He looked up from his work and he smiled. 

“No, but I don’t see why we can’t have a drink together first.”

“I’ve already had a drink,” Loki replied, straightening and taking one step into the room. 

“Wouldn’t you like another?”

“That might make me inappropriate.”

“You are always inappropriate,” Thor said, standing. “It’s an area you truly excel in.”

“I choose to take that as a compliment.”

“It was,” Thor said. He poured two glasses of wine, leaving one on the small table rather than offering it to Loki. He could do what he wanted with it.

“So much wine lately,” Loki said, almost _tsk_ ing. “Have you finally lost your boarish appetite for ale?”

“You don’t like the taste of ale,” Thor said. That earned him another step into the room. 

“What do you want?” Loki asked. “Get to it.”

Thor took a sip from his glass and circled back around to his sofa, where he had been laying on his back, surrounded by papers.

“Delegates from Alfheim are visiting next week. To deal with this,” he said, sweeping a hand over the documents— what Loki could only assume were the negotiations their father had drawn up. “Father has asked me to join him for the talks.” 

“And you need help now with what? Sounding out the four-syllable words?”

Thor gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I told him you would be there as well.”

“You told who?”

“Father.”

“And? Did he laugh at you?”

“No,” Thor said with a sigh. “He told me— ” _He told me it was my mistake to make_ did not seem like the right choice of words here. “He agreed.” 

Loki narrowed his eyes the way he did when Thor had said something particularly stupid, or suspicious. 

“So will you please come sit with me and tell me what you think of these terms?”

Loki hesitated, only briefly, and then sat without another word. He took a handful of papers off of Thor’s lap and began to read. 

“What exactly,” Loki said, before getting too far, “did he say?”

“He said it was a good idea,” Thor murmured, engrossed in the paper he was reviewing. Loki snatched it out of his hand. 

“You’re lying. I can always tell.”

Thor sighed again. “Does it matter what his exact words were? I have no idea. I don’t remember.” 

Loki pinched him, sharply— which earned an angry “ _ow_ ” and an even angrier glare. “Try,” he said.” 

“He had minor doubts,” Thor finally gave in. “He seems to think I want to change your nature.”

“And do you?”

“No.”

“What do you want, then? Specifically.”

“I want you to just… be who you are, Loki.” Thor frowned now, forfeiting all pretenses of doing work and leaning back into the sofa. “But I want you to be on my side, too. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive.” 

Loki was examining a fingernail. It was unclear whether he had even heard for two— maybe three— minutes. A very long time to sit in unpredictable silence. He shifted his body toward Thor, ever so slightly. 

“I have been on your side before,” he finally said. “It’s lonely.” 

To Thor’s credit, he did not try to protest. Instead he asked: “How can I make that better?”

“I won’t be treated like I don’t matter, or that I am somehow less insignificant than you, just because I wasn’t chosen to be king.” 

Thor nodded.

“You will listen to my ideas even if you don’t agree with them. You will at least listen to me when I speak.”

Thor nodded again. 

“I don’t think I’m asking for too much.” 

“You aren’t,” Thor said. 

“In the past, when I hurt you, it was because I was hurt first.” 

“Do you understand,” Thor began, carefully, “that it was never my intention to hurt you?”

Loki darkened at that. “Do you understand that not all of us can be so perfect?” 

Thor sighed; he took Loki’s hands, which were freezing. Always cold. His body temperature was like a perpetually sinking ship, and though it didn’t actively cause Loki any distress Thor found himself constantly wanting to wrap him up, press him closer. “You are the only one who thinks I’m perfect,” he said, and Loki darkened further, pulling his hands away. Like it was an insult. 

“And,” Thor continued, ignoring the sudden iciness in the room, “I need for you to stop.” He shook his head. “I have… so many faults.”

“I know that,” Loki snapped, instantly. “You can’t even read.” 

“I can read.”

Loki wrinkled his nose. 

“I can read, Loki.” 

“If you say so.” 

Thor took a decorative pillow from behind him, and smacked Loki in the face with it. Loki made a little sound of indignation, but it was largely, and to Thor’s great satisfaction, muffled.

“As I was saying,” Thor began, “you will always be disappointed if you are surprised every time I make a stupid mistake.” 

“I count on your stupid mistakes, brother,” Loki said. “It’s the only time I can have a little fun.” 

Thor frowned at that, and it was both pleasing and disheartening for Loki to see some of the determination fade from his eyes. Standing, Loki decided he would have that glass of wine after all, and instead of returning to his place next to Thor took a seat on the chair across from him, legs crossed underneath him. 

“I don’t think you’re perfect, Thor,” he said, after some time. “That’s exactly what the problem is. Everyone else in this palace, and on Asgard, and even across the realms might, but I do not.” 

“I’m confused.”

“You would be.” Loki took a sip of his wine, then another, longer one. “Do you know how frustrating it is to be the only person alive who sees you?”

“How in the Hel is that my fault?” Thor asked. 

“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Loki hissed. 

“But you take it _out_ on me.” 

“Yes,” Loki said. “I realize that.” 

“So _stop_.” 

Loki drained his wine. “I deserve something,” he said, “for having the guts to fight with you, and question your terrible decisions, and listen to you boast about your wins for centuries. I deserve something for being the one the Norns banished to Midgard to relearn you, with you.”

“Loki, I’m the one who wants— ”

“To get into my pants, yes,” Loki interrupted, waving his hand. “I deserve more than just the _honor_ of being fucked by the mighty Thor of Asgard.” 

“I thought what you wanted was to be my council.”

“You’ve already promised me that.”

“Then what?” Thor threw his hands up, frustrated. “Use your words!”

“I want you,” Loki said, trailing off so that Thor waited for the rest of the sentence. Loki stood, poured himself more wine, sat back down. “That was all,” he said, as if talking to a very slow child. 

“What.”

Not for the first time, Loki wondered how much strangling he could get away with. Shoving a dagger into Thor’s rib cage was fun, but some moments required strangling. “I,” Loki said, taking a breath, “may not be worthy of a throne, or a flying hammer, or of Odin’s love. But I have done enough to at least get you. The Norns seem to believe so, and you will not defy the Norns.”

“Who are you trying to convince, brother?” 

“I don’t care what everyone thinks. I thought I might,” Loki said with a shrug, “I thought I would feel guilty when they turn on you for all of this. Once they have seen you align yourself with me.” 

Thor rolled his eyes. “It’s the other way around.”

“No one will understand.”

“You have very little faith in your own people.”

“They are _not_ my people,” Loki said, gripping his wine glass harder. Miraculously, it did not break. 

“So this is what you’ve been doing all this time. Pacing around your room and talking yourself in circles.” Thor leaned forward; the strength of his gaze impossible. “All to prolong the inevitable.”

“Which is?”

“Come here.” 

“No,” Loki said, belatedly, blinking. “No— not until we’ve come to an agreement.”

“For fuck’s sake. Do you really want to turn this into a contract?” 

“I want assurances,” Loki said. “I want to be certain you won’t throw me away.”

“Loki, when have I ever— ”

“Everyone else has,” Loki said, calmly. He licked his lips. “I won’t have it from you, too. Not when I have loved you for so long, for nothing in return.” 

“And now your love has a price.”

“Now my love has worth. Now my love is something you actively want.” 

“I have always,” Thor said, taking a breath, but Loki interrupted him again.

“Act like it, then.” 

“I don’t think that’s fair.” 

“No,” Loki said. He remembered Thor at his side, every moment of their childhood, begging him for stories, tickling him until he complied. He remembered Thor discovering alcohol, stumbling into his chambers in the night, into his bed where he waxed poetic about all of the adventures they would go on together, eventually, just the two of them— falling asleep mumbling still while Loki stroked his hair. He remembered Thor’s delight at every single one of his illusions, sitting cross-legged and patient (for once) until Loki got it right, just the perfect mix of seidr and will. He remembered his brother’s pride and warmth, and he remembered how it slowly turned away from him, and how it cooled. 

“It isn’t. I won’t be. I will be difficult, and I will be jealous, and I will start fights when there is no reason for them. But I won’t lie to you again.” He paused. “And I will love you with whatever kindness and honesty is still left in me. Can you handle that?”

“Yes,” Thor said. 

“All right,” Loki said, and he stood, and he crossed the room, and he carefully, slowly pressed both knees into the couch around Thor’s body, straddling him. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki kissed him sweetly, one hand on Thor’s cheek and the other trailing along the bedspread, until he abruptly pushed Thor away. 
> 
> “What?” 
> 
> Loki scowled, looking from side to side. “Is your bed bigger than mine?”

7

Thor held him in place, by the hips, but he didn’t make any further moves. Instead he watched Loki carefully, seeing him for the first time, for the millionth time, as a human, as a god, as his brother. Loki watched him back, only for a moment, before resting his hands on Thor’s shoulders, and leaning in, and kissing him ever so softly. It was nothing like the kiss in the hallway, which had been hateful and confused and chaotic, but delicate— as though Thor was something he could break if he pushed too hard. He smelled like wine and incense and ivy. Loki pulled away, and they looked at one another. Thor could feel the string between them again, something bright and golden and inescapable linking them together. 

When Loki leaned in and kissed him again, Thor kept him in place.

Thor held his face with both of his hands and he deepened the kiss without opening his mouth, without pushing too much too fast, just enjoying the feel of Loki being there, of existing together in the same time and place. Loki’s hair hung over his shoulder, brushing Thor’s neck, and Thor smiled at the memory of needing so badly to know what it smelled like. What Loki smelled like, what he tasted like, what he liked. He remembered wanting nothing more than to know him both intimately and casually, to be waiting at a restaurant because Loki got caught up, to order his favorite glass of wine for him without having to be told. He had wanted these things so badly, such a short time ago. Now, holding the man he had known all his life, through childhood and through crisis, Thor knew that he still wanted them, and he wanted them enough to weather through dark times together. As long as it was together. 

Loki’s fingers tightened at Thor’s collar and without breaking the kiss Thor lifted them up, Loki’s legs still around his waist. He carried them into the other room and rather gently pressed Loki’s back down into the bed, crawling along on top of him. Loki kissed him sweetly, one hand on Thor’s cheek and the other trailing along the bedspread, until he abruptly pushed Thor away. 

“What?” 

Loki scowled, looking from side to side. “Is your bed bigger than mine?”

“ _What_?” 

“Your bed,” Loki said, seriously. “I think it’s bigger than mine. You have the bigger room, clearly, and I think you’ve even got a bigger bed, what else could you have in here that I don’t— a self-brewing ale maker? Fourteen permanent servants hiding behind the furniture? A little plaque that says _I will be King someday and Loki can sleep on the floor_? This is— ”

Thor took Loki’s wrists and pressed them hard into the mattress. “You can sleep here from now on. Take off your clothes.” 

Loki looked up at him, petulantly. “You take them off.”

This was typical. Letting go of him, slowly, Thor began undoing the buttons at Loki’s wrists. He unlaced the ties at Loki’s throat. He pushed the tunic up, exposing Loki’s stomach and chest, all the way up to under his arms, where it stuck there, because Loki refused to move his body or sit up or help out, even a little. Thor pulled him up by the arm, and he followed like a ragdoll. 

“Why,” Thor mumbled, quietly, shaking Loki out of his shirt. “Do you hate sex? Is that it?”

Loki lifted his head, where it had landed on Thor’s shoulder in limp, lifeless protest. He smiled. “I love sex,” he said. “I love it as much as I love watching you struggle.” 

Because there was nothing else to do, Thor laughed at that, and Loki followed in suit. He was rewarded with a kiss, as sweet as the other ones, Loki sitting up straight now, Thor’s face in his hands. “Do you know what I love most of all?” Loki asked, pulling back the slightest bit, enough to look Thor affectionately in the eyes.

“What?” 

“I love this bed.” 

Thor pushed him back down, Loki cackling, his hair spread out beneath him like a dark halo. Thor kissed him again, tugging on Loki’s lower lip for just a moment before opening his mouth, tasting the heat of him. It was a hyper-awareness like dew, like lightning, like all of nature’s inherent power tugging at the edges of Thor’s mind. Loki made a content noise into Thor’s mouth and it went through him like light. He shifted his hands to Loki’s chest, to the coolness of his skin, and it made him dizzy like drinking too much, too fast, standing up. The bruise on his neck from where Thor had planted his teeth was too devastating to look at— he avoided it and kissed the other side instead, gentler this time, behind his ear, a tongue at his earlobe. Loki had stopped laughing and was reacting perfectly, his breath still steady but softer somehow, his movements slow like honey. 

It took Thor a much shorter time to chuck off his shirt, to press his body back against Loki’s, better now, closer. He kissed slowly down Loki’s body— starting at his neck again, then the curve of his shoulder, the hollow of his collarbone, under it. He paused at one nipple, giving it a tentative flick of his tongue, and then— encouraged by the sharp intake of Loki’s breath— sucking at it. He kissed down his chest, the slope and dip of his abs, down to his waist and then back up again. 

Thor found Loki’s mouth and this time the reaction was instantaneous, hungry with a renewed violence that had Thor reaching toward the buttons of Loki’s pants. It was unnecessary. Loki pushed Thor’s face away and inclined his head and did away with the rest of their clothes— eventually, when Thor remembered, when he felt it was significant, he would ask where Loki had sent them. Now, nothing could have mattered less. Loki pulled him back and kissed him roughly, both of them half hard by now, somehow keeping their hands off of each other though it was getting increasingly difficult. He bit Thor’s lip; he dug his nails into his back. And just when Thor felt the shift of Loki’s hips underneath him, his body ready to arch into him, Loki pushed him away, again. 

“What?” Thor asked, catching his breath. He sat back on his hindlegs and Loki’s gaze swept over him, unmistakably, taking him in. He was not feeling shy. “What happened?” 

Loki sat up in one, easy motion. He kissed Thor on the lips, once. “I want to be on top,” he said, and shoved Thor back down. Thor laughed at that, a low, happy rumble that resonated in his chest, that Loki felt pass through his own body. He kissed him so that neither of them could say anything ridiculous and ruin the moment, hanging over him, looking at his brother’s golden skin and registering for the first time that all of this— every inch of Thor— belonged to him. Loki slipped a hand between them and Thor’s head hit the mattress, his whole body arching into the touch. His other hand found Thor’s hand, and held it. 

“Brother,” Loki said, rocking slowly against him. 

“Mm.”

“I love this bed,” he said, and his voice was so soft and so affectionate, that Thor knew he meant the other thing. 

Thor looked at him. He brushed his thumb across Loki’s lower lip. “I love this bed, too.”

Loki pumped his fist before things got too emotional, swallowing the gasps from Thor’s mouth into his own. He found a rhythm Thor seemed to like, slow at first, exploring the length of him, before quickening his pace, thrusting against the spread of his legs. He did not need to think during this, which he found peace in despite how close he was to the edge now— it was perhaps the only way to be around Thor and to not think of him and of them. Thor came with his mouth pressed against Loki’s neck, a moan vibrating all the way inside of him that sent Loki over as well, Thor’s name on the tip of his tongue before he could stop it from coming out. The warmth between them was almost too intimate to process. 

The room was warm, the bed was warm, everything was warm. Loki pulled away and was immediately chilled.

“Don’t go,” Thor said, and because Loki was boneless and light-headed, he could not protest when Thor brought him back, Loki’s head against his chest. 

It was an absurd act of weakness, but Loki did it anyway. He tilted his head up so he could kiss Thor’s mouth; he brushed his golden hair back, tucked it behind an ear; he nuzzled his nose against Thor’s neck and kissed him there as well. Then, he settled back against Thor’s chest, an arm thrown around him, already aware of the heated possessiveness creeping up inside of him and unable to shake it away.

A very long time seemed to pass. Thor’s breathing had slowed, and Loki knew he was close to sleep. 

“They should have left us,” he said, quietly. 

“Hm?” Thor seemed too content to be thinking. It was so typical. 

“On Midgard. They should have just left us there.”

Thor shifted underneath him, lazily. “You would give this up? Asgard? Royalty?”

Loki didn’t answer for a moment. He felt his arm tightening. “Yes,” he finally said. “For a life with you.” 

It was a horrible thing to have to admit. Loki felt something in him breaking— something like a wall, the stone crumbling pathetically to the floor. It wasn’t good, he thought. It couldn’t possibly be good. He felt a kiss on his head, and when he looked back up, Thor kissed his forehead. 

“We will have a life together,” Thor said. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“We will do the best with what we have.”

“That doesn’t feel like much,” Loki grumbled, and immediately wished he could take it back. Sometimes he went too far. Sometimes he was even aware of it. “That’s… not. I didn’t intend to say that.”

There was silence. Then: “Sit up and look at me.”

Loki knew better than to try to avoid a Serious Thor Conversation. He sat up, turned, so they were eye-to-eye. He crossed his legs underneath him like a kid.

“You are,” Thor began, taking Loki’s hands, “the most difficult person in all of the realms. You have taken a dagger to me more times than I care to count. You have tried to enslave planets, commit treason, and murder my friends. You have died and come back again. You have worked with Thanos, and you have died by his hand. You have been my brother and my enemy and my dearest friend. And I love you, Loki. I love you so much that I would take fighting you a million times over than living a life empty of you. You have been the most complicated, frustrating, exhilarating, and best part of all of my days.”

It was too much to meet the intensity of Thor’s gaze, so Loki looked at his lap instead. 

“The Norns taught me something,” Thor continued. “I doubt it was what they intended. They taught me that not a single power in all of the Nine Realms, not even our terrible behavior toward one another, could keep us apart. Wherever we are— whatever… insane situation we get ourselves into— I will find you.”

Loki laughed a little at that, something tight clenching in his throat. “That sounds like a threat.”

“It is. I will love you no matter what you do.”

“Where is the incentive for me to do good, then?”

“You love me, too.” 

Loki scowled at that, exit strategies already forming in his mind, trying for a way out. 

But it was fruitless, ultimately, and they both knew it. There was no point in a lie that was so blatant. 

“We will have a life together,” Thor said again. “And we will fight. And we will miscommunicate. And we will end up getting on one another’s nerves. But I promise to you, now, here, in this bed we apparently both love so much, that I will put you first, and try to always make you happy. I promise I will treat you the way I would have treated you on Midgard, with honor and with pride.” 

It was impossible not to soften. Loki took Thor’s face in his hands and he looked him in the eye. “I promise I will stand by you forever,” he said. “And I will only yell at you in private, when you are being spectacularly stupid.” 

It earned him a smile. And a kiss. 

“I love you, brother,” Loki said. 

“I know,” Thor said. “You make it so obvious.”

  
8

At the Observatory they stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Together. They did not know whether the Norns were watching them now, or if they felt their punishment had succeeded. They did not care, either way. They stood with their shoulders brushing. They stood on equal ground.

The days had been uncertain at first, both rekindled love and newfound romance between them tentative and cautious. They fought, of course, during the day and sometimes in the evenings, before they fell into bed together. To Thor’s pleasant surprise, Loki was much more forthcoming after sex, softer, easier to talk to. For the first time, in a long time, he did not feel that all hope was lost between them. Thor tried, now; that was the difference. He made an effort, where previously he had not. Where previously, he had taken his little brother for granted, as his little brother, as someone who would remain by his side no matter how he had been slighted. It had been unfair. 

They kept it a secret. It was easier to figure a relationship out without prying eyes and mouths and neither of them were sorry to lose the praise or criticism that naturally arose from declaring a romance publicly. The more they focused on relearning one another in their own, private spaces, the more they were able to understand their very specific and concentrated love for one another. The newness of falling in love with someone you had loved, actually, your whole life. The comfort of it. Thor found all of the restlessness and insolence of his past lives, shirking the throne time and time again for adventure, battle, and recognition, could be satisfied alongside a partner who both challenged and settled him. Loki found that being— not just _noticed_ from time to time, but valued, took the edge off of all of his chaos and unpredictability; it turned his moods playful rather than homicidal, it calmed him enough to be rational, and to love his people all over again. They were his people, too. This was his realm.

Thor’s bed, too. That was Loki’s now as well. He spread out on it, and he let Thor take him, slow and agonizing, until he could feel himself bursting at the seams. His favorite moments were after: the slow kissing, the comfortable conversation. Thor’s laugh. Loki had never let himself admit to himself how much he loved Thor’s laugh, until now. 

They felt the days and years and future stretch out before them, and for once there was no rush to do things better, or faster, or more ambitiously than one another. When they woke in the morning, and looked at one another’s open palms, there was only love. 

Heimdall knew, in the way that he knew all things, and he kept their secret, too. Loki found himself, interestingly, with access to the Watcher’s own, private world. He found that the more accessible and open he allowed himself to become, the less he had to push to be noticed. And Thor— perhaps surprisingly, but not at all unpleasantly— made good on his promises. He forced his brother’s name into every political decision he was making. He made sure the decisions were made together.

Even more interesting: the dials on the Observatory's walls, they learned, actually meant something.

Heimdall frowned at the both of them, pointing up at the large, perfectly circular dials around the room. “What did you think these were?” he asked. 

“Clocks,” Thor said.

“Maps,” Loki said.

Heimdall sighed. “Unfortunately, you are not wrong enough for me to make fun of you. But you are still wrong.”

“Are you going to tell us or are you going to be insufferable?”

“I thought I was always insufferable, Prince Loki.”

“Let me amend that to ‘more insufferable than usual’.”

Heimdall looked at him for a moment, as if considering. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind, beckoning for them to move closer to one. When they did, it slid open, revealing the stars beyond it.

“Ah,” Loki said. “A window.”

Heimdall opened his mouth to say something, but Thor elbowed Loki in the ribs before he could. “Stupid— the skies are different.”

Loki frowned. He looked from the opening in front of him to the massive clearing of space Heimdall spent all of his time in front of. Thor, shockingly, was right: the views were different.

“Is this another realm?”

“It’s another time,” Heimdall answered. He extended a hand and the stars Loki was looking at flickered into a clearer picture, the interior of their palace. The brothers exchanged a frown, and watched as they argued with one another, hurling thoughtless insults, their faces twisted with anger. Loki had a knife in his hands. 

Heimdall moved toward another dial and opened it, displaying Thor and Loki-disguised-as-Odin arguing in the middle of a crowd. Someone had just put on a play; the actors looked unimpressed and bewildered. Heimdall opened another, and Thor and Loki stood at the top of Stark Tower, weapons in their hands. Thor was bleeding from somewhere in his stomach and Loki had tears in his eyes, his hands betraying his heart. Heimdall opened another, and another, and another. Two boys playing in the grass, one dark-haired and one blond, laughing until tears leaked out of their eyes. Two boys exchanging furtive glances over a dinner table, planning their next adventure. Two boys sharing a bed, staying awake well past their bedtimes, holding hands in the dark. The scenes turned; the boys grew into young men who were proud and ambitious and willful. 

“Are these happening simultaneously?” Loki asked, thoughtful, after a moment.

“Some,” Heimdall said. “Some have happened before. Some are memories and some are dreams. Some have not happened at all.”

In one scene, they stood in the courtyard, hand in hand, their faces awash with light from the golden hour. It was too intimate somehow; Thor felt himself intruding on something private though he couldn’t look away. They were smiling like they were the only two people left in the world. Thor had felt that feeling before, in countless other lives. That they were the only two people left in the world.

“Why are you showing us this?” Thor asked.

Heimdall smiled, faintly. The dials slid closed, one by one, until they were shrouded in gold again, lifeless and still. On the far side of the room, a last one opened. 

As they approached it, the Observatory seemed to darken. Thor had the distinct feeling that whatever it was Heimdall was about to show them was not meant for their eyes, that he was breaking some sort of ancient, unwritten code for them, again. The scene was dark too, and they were not on Asgard but a large ship, the air around them smoldering and thick. Bodies lay at their feet, easily recognizable as Asgardian women and children. When Thor saw himself, he was in chains, gagged and kneeling beside some alien cretin he did not recognize. Loki stood across from him, an offering in his hand for a man who was more mountain than lifeform. Both brothers were dirty, covered in soot and dried blood. They looked haggard and traumatized, aching through the bone. The mountain said something, and Loki pulled out a knife much too small for him.

“No,” Thor said, suddenly, pulling his brother to his chest, and turning them both away. “We don’t need to see this.” 

“Will it happen?” Loki asked, craning his head around, always most harmful to himself in his curiosity. 

Heimdall looked thoughtful as the screen behind them closed. “No,” he said. “I do not think that it will.” 

  
epilogue, _or alternatively_ :

It was late, and the drizzle had evolved into steady rain. Loki walked into it without noticing, and it surprised Thor again, how someone who seemed to put together— almost to the point of primness— could at turns be so careless and casual. Thor pulled him back, under the awning. He only wanted a moment to open his umbrella but he got an armful of Loki instead, breathless from drink and weather, from being rushed back so suddenly, laughing close in Thor’s face. In one, steady movement, Thor turned them so Loki’s back was pressed up against the building’s wall, with Thor’s hand on his waist. 

Loki tilted his head up just enough to look Thor in the eye, a smile on his lips. “Hi,” he said, and it came out like a challenge.

“Hi.”

There was a moment— just a moment— that passed between them, suspended in the air, slack and glowing between them. 

Then Thor leaned in to close the space, and the whole world seemed to pitch. He pressed his palms against the wall on either side of Loki’s head; he kissed him like he hadn’t kissed anyone in a long, long time. The umbrella had fallen out of Thor’s hands, forgotten entirely. He breathed in Loki’s scent; it was wine and ivy. 

The moment felt like an event; it felt bigger than both of them, than the street and the restaurant and the string lights combined. The sidewalk seemed to glow with approval for them.

“Maybe,” Thor said, quietly, pulling away, “it’s too soon to say this.” His expression was impossible to decipher.

“Hm?”

“That I want everything with you.”

“It’s too soon,” Loki said.

“I know.”

“Maybe,” Loki said, looking him in the eye. “Maybe I do, too.”

“Do you?”

Loki didn’t respond. Thor kissed his jaw. “Do you?” he asked again.

“I think so,” Loki said. The rain picked up. “Yes,” he said.

Thor beamed. “Okay,” he said. “Everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you, so much, for reading this! i hope it made you laugh, or smile, or feel something, and i hope i was able to adequately express how firmly i believe that no matter what happens to these two, they will always find one another in the end. 
> 
> you can find me on twitter @ umzeynep.


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